Vault One Gallery

What changes do fifty years make in the appearance of a northern Polish port city lying approximately a thousand kilometers from Cluj? What was captured in a few days by a young photographer coming from 1970s Romania – and what has changed in half a century? The GDAŃSK50 Photo Remake Project offers an unusual travel in time. Szentes Lajos (1944–2002), a photographer from Miercurea Ciuc visited Gdańsk in 1974, his brief journey immortalised in a Fortepan black-and-white negative roll film and some anecdotes. Fifty years later, the city is revived in his son’s, Szentes Zágon’s precise photographic reconstructions. Twenty-three photos are almost perfectly matched from the same angles, using lenses with the same 50-millimeter focal length, but with digital technology. From this collection, sixteen pairs will be presented at the first opening of the GDAŃSK50 Photo Remake Project in Cluj.