Filip Springer

(b. 1982) – a writer, photographer and reporter, a finalist for many prestigious Polish literary prizes

He graduated in archaeology from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He has presented his photography at solo exhibitions in many Polish cities. For his debut, ‘Miedziankę. Historię znikania’ (History of a Disappearance: A Forgotten Polish Town, 2011), he was nominated for the Nike Literary Award, the Ryszard Kapuściński Award, the Gdynia Literary Award and the Angelus Central European Literary Award. He has received a scholarship from the Ryszard Kapuściński Herodotus National Culture Centre and Foundation. He is the programme director of the Reportage Institute in Warsaw, co-creator of the Ecopoetics School (with Professor Julia Fiedorczuk), and the initiator and co-creator of the literary Festival on the Road. He is the curator of the photography project Snapshots: A Photographic Archive of Revitalization.

Springer introduced a new topic to Polish reportage: architecture. In his first book, his acclaimed  History of a Disappearance (2011), he described the history of a small town in Lower Silesia which vanished from the face of the earth in a short time. This is not just a reconstruction of the fates of its inhabitants – Germans, Poles, Russians and Romani – it is also a tale of the stigma that history stamps on the lives of ordinary people, and about how people themselves affect their surrounding environments: mines were active in Miedzianka over the centuries, wrecking the environment. Historical changes were accompanied by the gradual, consistent destruction of the town, which, in the end, literally collapsed into the earth. The author brilliantly renders the process of slow erosion and destruction; in a series of freeze-frames he captures images of the changing space – homes falling into ruin, toppling trees, as well as the gradual exodus of the inhabitants of a town the government condemned to demolition.

While in Disappearance architecture is a vital backdrop in describing human fates, in Springer’s later books (‘Źle urodzone. Reportaże o architekturze PRL-u’ [Misbegotten: A Report on Architecture in Communist Poland], 2012; ‘Zaczyn. O Zofii i Oskarze Hansenach’ [Ferment: On Zofia and Oskar Hansen], 2013; ‘Wanna z kolumnadą. Reportaże o polskiej przestrzeni’ [Bathtub with a Colonnade: A Report on Polish Spaces], 2013) it moves on to become the main protagonist. Springer writes of architecture from the perspective of a user – an average resident or ordinary pedestrian – thus tearing it from the domain of the specialists, the architects and city planners. Starting with simple questions, such as: ‘Why has the modernist architecture of communist Poland aged so badly, and why does it spark such controversy?’; ‘Why don’t Polish architects even hear of Oskar Hansen in their studies?”; ‘Why is the space we live in so ugly?”, the author speaks not only about architecture, but also of the economic and social mechanisms that determine its function and final shape, to a degree depending on the time and place.

This reporter is also interested in another side of architecture, which is sometimes used as tool to shape social relationships and affect human behaviour. This explain his special focus on communist modernism, especially the visionary architect Oskar Hansen. In Ferment, Springer broadens the context of his tale, introducing a Scandinavian trope; with just a few lines he shows how their social model reflects itself in architecture and people’s relationship to the space around them, and vice versa.

Springer’s books often have an aspect of journalistic investigation; he gains access to new testimonies and documents, he juxtaposes statements of people who interpret the same events in different ways. This motif is evident in Disappearance, but also in a more journalistic piece,  Bathtub with a Colonnade, in which the reporter tries, in part, to reach people responsible for the lawless placement of large-format advertisements on residential buildings.

An important element of Springer’s books are the photographs, which interact with the text as a parallel story (Misbegotten and Bathtub with a Colonnade). His photographs are recognisable at a glance: a cool colour spectrum, melancholy distance, unforced painterly quality, at times a dash of irony. He himself says he tries to compose them on principles similar to photoreportage; he uses foreground and background, rhythm and detail in an analogous way. Though his books are devoted to concrete phenomena or architects, they always have a deeper existential dimension, which makes them go beyond impromptu descriptions. Springer’s writing has been lauded by both critics and readers – he is considered one of the brightest authors of his generation.