Ela Polkowska
Firmly pinch the skin together
Firmly Pinch The Skin Together is a project about the tactile and fleshy universe of tension and reduction of tension, pressure, balance and bonds. It consists of everyday life moments of uneasiness, with pictures that visually trace the feeling of anxiety. The title is taken from the medical instructions on how to administer an injection and shows the correlation between a slightly painful gesture and its healing function.
It is based on the conception of the Skin-Ego by Didier Anzieu where skin is treated as a metaphor – a wrapping that protects the interior but also connects with others,
maintains the body in a state of unity and solidity, preserves the balance of our inner environment from external disturbances, but in its form and texture retains the marks of those disturbances.
The project shows the system of touch, pressure, pain and warmth closely connected to the other sensory organs, including sight, and to the awareness of body movement and balance.
Ela Polkowska is a Master of Art History from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and currently a student of photography at the Institute of Creative Photography, Silesian University, Opava, Czech Republic. She is interested in documenting people, places and objects on the margin of everyday life and subjects relegated from the dominant public memory or hidden from consciousness. She is currently based in Warsaw.