THE HAWK
By Jakub Szachnowski.
N 48°24’10.753’’ E 18°52’37.289’’
The project was made in the Slovakian school situated directly under Sitno hill (1009 m), the subject of numerous local legends. The primary and secondary school in Štiavnické Bane is the only one in the world to have falconry in the regular curriculum. Originally meant as documentation, it evolved into a poetic exploration. The photos represent an intimate relationship between the photographer and his topographical study of landscape and place, which capture the extraordinary inspiration of looking at the world from the perspective of a child who discovers the myriad details and mysteries of the world around us mixed with the perspective of looking at the world as an animal takes us into a state of deep understanding of nature and symbiosis with it allowing us to perceive harmony.
Edition of 100. 29x23cm. 44 pages. Printed on Munken Polar Rough 150/120g.
® RUST Publishing 2023.
N 48°24’10.753’’
E 18°52’37.289’’
“It looked like most other places in the area. The sight I was well familiar with – I saw a similar one not long ago, and was caught asking myself what was it all about. Why is it that when I set my eyes on those same elements, I seem to feel something more than everything I had known so far? The human perspective doesn’t allow for ever understanding anything – we just collect loads of unexplained observations that we keep trying to organize. We then make up figures, somewhere in between the realms of the real and surreal. Fourteen pairs of leather gloves, each of a different size. Each seems to be worn by a different owner. Maybe it’s the clear visibleness of things that gets into my head. The impression would surely change when in movement, up in the air, where the successive planes flicker much quicker across the horizon, making it easier to understand. People seem to be birds anyway – just look at how their noses stick out of their heads.”
With The Hawk by Polish photographer Jakub Szachnowski, RUST Publishing is proud to present its latest publication and entry into 2023. In mystical arrays of shadows Szachnowski invites us into the captivating realms of rural Slovakia. What started out as an attempted documentation of the unknown, quickly strayed from its designated path and blossomed into a poetic analysis of an energetic experience. In an immersive confrontation Szachnowski spent just over a week inside a classroom of a school in the woodlands beneath the Stiavnica Mountains that is the only primary and secondary school in the world where the subject falconry is taught as part of the basic curriculum. The images portray an intimate relationship between the photographer and his topographic study of a landscape so distant, so obscure and yet familiar.