As we draw closer to the new year we’ve asked a very special guest every day to take a moment to reflect on 2017 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for them. It’s an assortment of treats to surprise you with every day – to enjoy and contemplate as we all reflect on the year that has passed and conjure our hopes and wishes for 2018. This is our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and of saying ‘Thank You’ to each of you for inspiring us throughout the year.

*******

Gdańsk-based art professor and Street Artist M-City has been stenciling the inner workings of a real and imagined industrial world onto walls, sea vessels, and an aviation control tower among other surfaces for a decade or so. He uses his work as metaphor for larger messages, if you care to interpret them, and a thinking man like M-City rarely leaves a stone unturned in his observations of human foibles and geopolitics today or in history. Today he tells us about typical scene in cities around the globe where Street Artists and other Creatives bring a moribund place to life, only to have it snatched up by developers and culture vultures when the area matures into something profitable.

M-City

A few buildings look like nowhere else.

This one is located in the center of Gdańsk betweeen a shipyard and the old town. The Building has a long story and was built before the second war, becoming known as the biggest “Pumpernickel” bakery.

90% of the city was destroyed during World War II and that’s why in this photo the area is still a bit empty around it. Over 30 artist have spent the last few years creating here; painters, photographers, sculptors, theater people and many more. We did many shows in a gallery here and and in other parts of the building.

These cultural events and the environment we built – everything happened here without any public money, just a bit of private support. My studio is also inside and outside I did a lot of quick murals to comment on public and political life.

Now someone has bought our building and wants to destroy/develop it as soon as possible and to build part of a new town. This place will be gone by the end of the year. It was one of the last independent art places in our region and I don’t think that we will find this  kind of place in the future because the City is eating art spots fast and faster every year.

M-city. Gdańsk, Poland. (photo M-city)

M-city

238

138

45