Meeting with the author of the book “Atlas of Holes and Cracks” Michal Ksiazek.
Nature that takes over a city starts with the smallest cracks in concrete. Nature has squeezed into the smallest cracks in the city and found crevices in built-up metropolises. It has greened the sidewalk holes we stumble over while rushing to work.
This world, which we don’t see every day, enchants if we only find a moment to explore it. Michal Ksiazek takes us for a walk along well-known streets and encourages us to look more carefully. He tracks down the secret lives hidden among the concrete and tucked behind the neon signs of big cities. With a perverse sense of humor, he tells us about unobvious urban spaces where nature has made its home. Atlas of Holes and Gaps is a hymn to urban nature.
“In addition to his vast knowledge of nature, Michal Ksiazek has the soul of a poet, which allows him a wonderful, almost childlike admiration for the most common form of life. A gray crow from the vicinity of the Parade Square, a praying mantis from the park, birdweed sprouting between concrete slabs – Michal will look into every hole and crevice and find something fascinating everywhere. I’m telling you, look into those holes and crevices with him, because he will show you a truly extraordinary world of urban nature.”
Adam Wajrak
After the meeting, Michal Ksiazek will invite participants to a BIO-TRAVEL walking tour of Kolibki Park.
The bio-travel allows to see anew the places considered familiar and uninteresting, as if to inhabit them once again. “Micro-world!”, “Coral reef!”, “City within a city!” – these are typical reactions to closely examining the bark of a tree under a magnifying glass, exploring a vast hollow or a lawn. These terms suggest the impression of a change of location, a presence in another part of the world or even a journey. They are often accompanied by surprise: “I’ve lived here for so many years and I didn’t know it!”
Therefore, a bio-travel can start anywhere, anytime. A bio-travel differs from the increasingly common sensory walks in that the aforementioned walks put a person and his senses, the senses of pleasure, at the center. One may get the impression that the worlds encountered are not important, that only the human sensation matters. A bio-travel does not exclude the enjoyment of smells, light and textures, however, it places the encountered Others at the center of perception and interpretation: insects, birds, plants.
Biodróż, therefore, is also a way of life, spent on regular walks and excursions, during which there is a repetition of the same movements that bring satisfaction and even happiness. Bios from Greek also means a way of life.
Michal Ksiazek poet, reporter, cultural expert, forest engineer and ornithologist.
Nominated for the 2014 Gdynia Literary Award in the essay category for his book Yakutsk. A Dictionary of Place. Winner of the 2015 Wroclaw Silesius Poetry Prize in the debut of the year category for The Science of Birds. For this volume, he was also nominated for the 2015 Nike Literary Award and for the award in the 11th National Literary Contest “Golden Mean of Poetry” 2015 for the best debut poetry book of 2014.
For his reportage Droga 816, he was awarded the 2016 Gdynia Literary Award in the essay category, the Wieslaw Kazanecki Literary Award of the President of the City of Bialystok for the best book of 2015, and the 2016 Magellan Award. “Droga 816” also brought nominations for the 2015 Ryszard Kapuscinski Award for Literary Reportage, the 2016 Warsaw City Literary Award in the prose category, and the 2016 Beata Pawlak Award. In 2018, the book was published in German translation.
In 2018 Ksiazek was awarded the Mazurian Orpheus for his poetry volume North East.
