Marek Szyryk returns to the past. He uses old photographs he took when he was young to enhance his memories. He confronts these traces with contemporary photographs, provoking reflections on eternal and universal human dreams, aspirations and the need for their later confrontation with reality. The world of childlike and youthful play, characterized by an active presence, is filled with the joy of the experienced moment, the need for friendship and acceptance.  Unpretentious games with unrestrained imagination contrast with the reality of mundane everyday life from decades ago. Moments captured in a still frame create a vision of the land of freedom, happiness and carefree lifestyle imbued with spontaneity and courage.

The photographs taken by young Marek Szyryk, in spite of their unpretentiousness and optimistic tone, sometimes recklessness, are surprisingly mature and technically correct. The young photographer has a great intuition for composing shots, both the static ones and those caught in motion, he uses various points of view. He also knows how to capture the specificity and mood of the moment in a reporter’s manner. More than one hundred photos presented at the exhibition manifest the conviction about the beauty of life, create a vision of the world as if detached from the dull reality, driven by its own principles of youth, filled with the need for bliss. At the same time, the young protagonists dream of the future, in which they believe they will one day come across as heroes, protagonists of more serious dramas.

The archival aspect is developed in a series of contemporary Polaroids obtained by the author thanks to an Internet project. Here, again, the land of childhood is set apart from the surrounding adult context and also acquires a symbolic dimension. Thus, the artist bridges the gap between the past and the present. Marek Szyryk’s nostalgic journey has a deeply personal and sentimental character, but his reflections also make us reminisce and cause regret for the lost time and unfulfilled dreams. Despite the fact that they are deeply personal, they strike a universal note.