LUBLIN RE-CUT

LUBLIN RE-CUT, 2025

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Six works, 64 x 48 cm, digital print on canvas

Lublin, Poland​

 

In the art project “Lublin Re-Cut”, Kristaps Priede portrays Lublin as a living film—continuously edited from fragments of memory, architectural traces, and personal reflections. The project continues Priede’s ongoing series in which the central metaphor is the puzzle: each piece embodies an imprint of the past and a testimony to the present, inviting the viewer to become a co-author in rewriting the city’s narrative.

 

In this edition, Priede focuses on historical cinema buildings that played a significant role in Lublin’s cultural landscape during the communist period: Kosmos, Robotnik, and Wyzwolenie. These cinemas are more than architectural objects; they reflect the dynamics of society shaped by restricted freedoms and serve as witnesses to people’s hopes, dreams, and longing for a wider world.

 

“Lublin Re-Cut” consists of six works created in puzzle technique, where archival photographs of the former cinemas are overlaid with contemporary images captured from the same vantage points. This juxtaposition allows viewers to feel the flow of time—revealing which buildings have remained intact, which have been transformed, and which have disappeared from the cityscape. Mirror-like puzzle fragments are embedded within each work, reflecting the present moment and the viewer’s presence. This symbolic gesture emphasizes that the viewer is not merely an observer but an active participant: their movement, gaze, and reflections become part of Lublin’s evolving montage. The installation invites not only to look, but to engage—to enter a dialogue between past, present, and personal experience.

 

Historical cinemas existed in Lublin well before the communist era—for example, in the early 20th century Teatr Stary w Lublinie also operated as a cinema. Yet it was during the communist period that cinema buildings gained a distinct social and symbolic significance. Despite the presence of several cinemas in the city, going to the cinema became a meaningful and anticipated experience. Foreign films, often censored or selectively admitted, symbolized freedom, alternative ways of life, and access to worldviews otherwise inaccessible in everyday reality. Cinemas became windows to the outside world and creative spaces where viewers could search for cultural perspective, discuss social differences, and explore their identity.

 

Cinema in this context was not merely entertainment—it was a collective and social event. Watching a film together in a large hall created emotional synchronicity: audiences laughed, held their breath, or were moved at the same moments, sharing an experience that strengthened a sense of belonging. This unity symbolized the human need to seek meaning collectively, even within a reality defined by limitations.

 

Lublin’s cinemas, particularly those active and popular during the communist era, stand as mirrors of the city’s complex historical identity. They function as carriers of collective memory, as spaces of dialogue and empathy, and as symbolic territories where individual and shared stories converged. “Lublin Re-Cut” encourages us to revisit these sites as nodes linking past and present, and to reflect on how the architecture of the city continues to shape our understanding of history and identity.

 

“Lublin Re-Cut” does more than document vanished or transformed cinema buildings—it reveals the city as a living organism in which past and present are in constant interplay. The project asks: what shapes our relationship with places that no longer exist, and how can visual memory preserve their meaning? Priede’s works remind us that Lublin’s story is far from complete—it continues through the perspective of each viewer who becomes a co-author of the city’s evolving montage.