In 2008, we worked with the Realistic Theatre and Robek Paluchowski on the photographic project Busz po polsku based on the short stories of Ryszard Kapuściński. Warmia was our field of activity. We focused on Węgajty and the surrounding villages. We arrived there just after the Theatre Village. Robek took us first to Wacek and Mute. When I entered the barn and the theatre hall for the first time, different from any I had seen, I felt that something special had been happening here a few days before. Over the next few days we worked, getting to know the area and its people, staying at Ela and Reinold's house, which became mine for those few days, as it would in subsequent years. In 2009, we staged Busz po polsku at the Theatre Village and hung a photographic exhibition we had prepared the year before on the farmyard fences in Godki. The performance was complicated for the Węgajty conditions and required us to bring in lighting and sound equipment. And so I took on the technical support for the entire festival. And then many more, until today. This was the time when my love for photography turned into my main occupation, and I started treating the Theatre Village as a reportage mania. A place ideal for a quiet observer of the world and human relationships. The following years, in addition to a series of photo essays from the festival, resulted in films Wioska and Wykluwanie. At the beginning I thought that Węgajty needed me and my support, but after years I understood that it was I who needed Węgajty, and the people with whom my paths crossed there changed me forever. It is them that I wish to meet every year. See you there, dear friends.
fot. Agnieszka Wiśniewska