The title of the new series of photographs refers directly to Henri Lefebvre's theory, showing suburbia as the result of capitalist processes of urbanisation. The project continues the research into non-places that Stępiński summed up in his doctoral dissertation in 2022. For over 20 years the artist has been creating photographic images on the border of post-documentary. It happens that the final version of a photograph does not fully correspond to the original record, whether analogue or digital.

This time exotic animals and fragments of various geographical zones appear in the photographs. It is an exhibition about a change of perspective that reinterprets and ironises the reality of suburban spaces in the broader, global context of migratory, architectural, economic or climatic change.

"Produkcja przestrzeni" [The Production of Space] concerns marginal areas — transitional zones between the city and the non-place. It is here that ecological enclaves of silence and greenery and gated communities arise, but also — on land where swathes of forest have been cut down — gigantic hubs and distribution centres, road networks and ring roads.

Maciej Stępiński, born in Warsaw, after many years of photographing large cities and metropolises moved to the exurbia of southern Mazovia.

"My former experience of living in the city centre changed my perception of the suburbs. For several years my point of view has been transforming — I observe peripheral spaces as areas of intense social and urban change. I perceived the city limits differently when leaving them through suburbia, and now I look at them differently, being already outside the built-up area."

The contemporary sociology of space, which also includes the research of Sharon Zukin, draws attention to the tensions between the homogenisation of space and its potential to become a field of social creativity. The digital revolution and globalisation are changing the functions of urban spaces and their peripheries. Castells' new theory of the network society holds that digitisation has weakened the traditional division into centres and suburbs. Maciej Stępiński introduces the viewer to these dilemmas, examining how suburbanisation shapes new forms of urban alienation while at the same time opening up possibilities for new interactions.

patronage: NN6T, Sklep 6x7, Q print

Dr Maciej Stępiński – artist, photographer, curator, academic lecturer. He is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles, France. Doctorate in photography from the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. For over twenty years he has been creating photographic projects connected with the transformation of landscape and architecture.

He has shown his work abroad: in France, China, Canada, the United States, Germany, Morocco, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Spain and in Poland (including the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Zachęta, Kordegarda, PGS, GGF, the National Museum in Gdańsk, BWA Wrocław, BWA Zielona Góra). He has presented his photographs at photography biennales and festivals (Sopot, Arles, Kraków, Poznań, Łódź). Winner of awards and artist residencies, including Kulturkontakt, Vienna, the Artist in Residence programme at 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica, California, and grants from Mécènes du Sud, Marseille, the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and Drac Paca, France.

www.stepinski.com