Warszawa Centralna is the primary railway station of the Capital of Poland. It was built as a flagship project of the People’s Republic of Poland during the 70ies. Designed as a functionalist architecture building, it is part of a system of public communications that includes an underground gallery labyrinth with food and newspapers stalls that leads to the 8 platforms of the train station. A 500 mt long pedestrian paths connects Warszawa Centralna to the so-called patelnia (frying pan) -the square just outside the Central Metro station in Warsaw.
The station was used as a scenographic element and Federico focused on those people who inhabit it. The train stations are in general a place for fast transit of people, but for beggars, homeless people, buskers and alcoholics (those who permanently live there) is the place where they can beg to survive or to make a living. The work is organized around the portraits of some of these inhabitants and the details of their own lives, like the few coins the were able to collect, the cigarette butts they hunt around, and also some edible urban mushrooms that they find in the bushes around the station.
The pictures were shot in winter 2014, just in this area, and were shot on film, to have as less as possible infrastructures when the author met his subjects.
The final form of Federico’s project WARSZAWA CENTRALNA is a hand made accordion booklet with 55 silver prints dry mounted on its pages. The accordion structure allows the watcher to change and personalize the sequence of the pictures, and to find his own personal narrative and aesthetic rhythm.
About the author:
Federico Caponi was born in Tuscany in 1968, and graduated at the University of Florence in Philosophy. He has been working as stage photographer for Italian and foreigner theatres, and still photographer for TV and movie productions. His pictures were exhibited at “EastStreet” in Lublin (2013), and featured in its catalogue. His work “Bazar Olimpia” was shown at the “So far, so close” exhibition during the 2014 “Cineast” film festival in Luxembourg. Today he lives in Warsaw, Poland, and mostly photographs for advertising, editorial and magazines. He also leads darkroom and analog photography workshops, both in Florence and in Warsaw.
