New Publication: The Avant-Garde of Socialism in the Prehistoric Jungle: The Temporalities of Coal Mining in 1950s Upper Silesia

PhD candidate Jakub Gawkowski has published a new article in Art Margins. In The Avant-Garde of Socialism in the Prehistoric Jungle: The Temporalities of Coal Mining in 1950s Upper Silesia, he examines the temporal narratives embedded in the artistic representations of coal mining in post-war Poland, specifically focusing on the 1950s Upper Silesian region. The article highlights how different cultural expressions engaged with both the prehistoric past of coal formation and the envisioned future fueled by its continuous extraction and, by exploring the timescapes embedded in cultural production (from geological deep-time to the immediate, destabilizing impacts of coal mining) it bridges the art history of socialist Poland and history of temporality for a broader understanding of the paradoxes within temporal politics related to fossil-fueled socialist modernity.