Sandra Mickiewicz

Where is home? What does it actually mean? Is it where we currently live? Or is it a place where we were born and where we grew up? This is what I’ve been questioning when I visited my home country, Poland.

In 2007, a few years after Poland joined the European Union, my parents decided to leave our country and we moved to England. At that time I was only 15. It is that kind of age where we are trying to find out more about ourselves. It is when we become more rebellious at some point. We believe everything and everyone is against us. Certainly, I  was one of those difficult teenagers to handle. I didn’t want to move out. I was afraid of the unknown. I didn’t feel like England was my home. I missed my family, friends, our traditions, food and piece of mind. It was hard to adapt and get used to a new chapter in our lives.

It has been 15 years since we left our homeland and every time I go back to visit my family, I feel like time stopped. It always feels like I am a little girl again. The only difference is the way I see and understand the world through the experiences I had.

Leaving my home at the age of 15 and coming back 15 years later with my camera, trying to stop the time and capture some memories that I left behind was a very special moment. For two weeks, I travelled around the northern part of Poland along the coast visiting my family, going to old and new places and even talking to strangers, I was hoping to find the answer to my questions I had but at the same time, I wanted to enjoy every second I had with some of my family members that I haven’t seen for 6 years or even more. Every project I work on teaches me something and helps me to understand the subject better. This body of work made me realise how time flies and that I need to visit my motherland more often.