Still far away from paradise

This is a story about the need to abandon the current life and start to find one’s place anew. About adapting to a new environment and giving it a new identity. Of the overriding need to live close to nature, far from the consumerist momentum. And about the high price to pay that comes with this choice. About loneliness. About an empty account, because finding a job there, even a temporary one, is nearly impossible. Although hard work has to be done – with preparing for winter, shovelling snow, mowing your lawn or repairing roads destroyed by sudden downpours.

The series of photos is a portrait of places and people that I met during a dozen or so trips to the mountains of Lower Silesia – Poland and Czech Republic.

Mateusz Kowalik is a Polish photographer based in Warsaw, who is now studying photography at the Silesian University in Opava. His work has been snown at TIFF festival in Wroclaw, Off Festival in Bratislava and Riga Photomonth.