Hibernated Nights

Hibernated Nights is a project about young Ukrainians in a Polish refugee center near the border to Ukraine. After the outbreak of war in Ukraine on the 24th of February this year, their seeking for refuge made them stay in a sports hall turned into a dormitory – first planning to rest there only for a few days. It went from a few days to several months, in which this dormitory became the center of their lives – until further notice.

It is a work about the impact of the concept of “home” on identity and an observation of the mechanisms that are set in motion when this factor is threatened.

Gerd Waliszewski (1996) is a Polish photographer, born in 1996 in the USA, and grew up in Poland and Germany. He has been studying at the Ostkreuzschule fuer Fotografie in Berlin since spring 2021. In his photography he works with a documentary approach and is interested in its vague border to fiction. His current focus is on youth during times of crisis.