Photographing people in Poland in their homes or on their doorsteps, Rydet produced a massive archive of about twenty thousand negatives of faces, interiors, objects and pictures. The project consumed her entirely, to the extent that she never managed to give it a final shape – neither in the form of a book nor an exhibition. There was always another place she wanted to visit, more people she wanted to photograph. Due to the fact that Zofia Rydet’s project has never been shown in a sufficiently broad selection, it has remained shrouded in myth. The aim of the symposium accompanying the exhibition Zofia Rydet. Record, 1978-1990 is to change exactly that, by bringing the "Record" to use again, both as an object of interpretation as well as of photography theory; by contextualizing and interpreting Zofia Rydet's magnum opus from different points of departure, and thus making it available for further reflection. The artist herself was unresolved about how to define her work. Is it a piece of art or science – or perhaps, above all, a testimony of its time?
