Pestka
Magdalena Wywrot
Pestka is the first photobook by Polish photographer Magdalena Wywrot. In it she documents life with her daughter Barbara, during a period of eleven years. The title, Pestka, is the same as Barbara’s nickname.
Wywrot’s blurred, grainy, high-contrast black-and-white photographs create a personal universe capturing an intimate mother-daughter dynamic. The portraits are tender, mysterious and full of life. While the landscapes are disorienting. Every time you turn a page another spectacular photo becomes visible. Now and then you might sense some stylistic cues from the histories of photography.
Mother-daughter projects are not unusual in photography. And Wywrot’s project reminds us of other projects that have focussed on mother-daughter relationships. For instance Ruth Lauer Manenti crafted a tender portrait of her mother in her photobook I Imagined It Empty.
Pestka has a simple design. It’s a square format book. With the pages hosted between two boards and a thin black strip of cloth running around the spine. A photograph of a woman, her hair obscuring her face, takes up the entire cover. The title of the book and the artist’s name are embossed in silver letters in the middle. The images inside vary in size and placement on the pages. There are no captions or page numbers.
The result is a very fine photobook. With some spectacular photographs. Which sometimes distract us from the underlying story: a young girl on her way to adulthood guided and watched by her mother.
Pestka
Photographer: Magdalena Wywrot
Published by Deadbeat Club in 2024
Hardcover, 146 pages, 103 black-and-white photographs, 24 x 24 cm
Essays by David Campany and Barbara Rosemary