Tytus Szabelski
AMZN
In December 2018, Tytus Szabelski got hired for a short time at the Amazon fulfillment center in Sady near Poznań. This gave him the opportunity to see from the inside how one of the biggest companies in the world operates on a micro scale. The AMZN project is trying to shed light on the entire functioning of an internet giant - from the materiality of huge warehouses, to working conditions, to specific corporate culture and versatility, to visions of the future, created by the company’s management.
Tytus Szabelski, This Facad is a Lie, AMZN, 2018-2021. Courtesy of the artist.
Tytus Szabelski, AMZN, 2018-2021. Courtesy of the artist.
AMZN is a multi-media, multi-threaded project, the core of which is a series of photographs of the company's warehouses. It is surrounded by a narrative of workers' struggles contained in collected union leaflets, stories of mutual solidarity in the age of growing automation, attempts to recreate oppressive work procedures and a glimpse of the customer experience. Most of these elements are connected by a website Amzn.vnlab.org which functions as sort of an interactive warehouse containing not only artworks, but also articles, excerpts and quotations, becoming both a separate whole and a supplement to exhibitions of the AMZN project
https://www.tytusszabelski.com
https://www.tytusszabelski.com
Tytus Szabelski, Direct Action, AMZN, 2018-2021. Courtesy of the artist.
Tytus Szabelski, Direct Action, AMZN, 2018-2021. Courtesy of the artist.
Tytus Szabelski (1991) is a photographer and visual artist. He graduated from journalism and social communication at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, and photography at the University of Art in Poznań, where he completed his PhD in fine arts. He cooperated with the Center of Contemporary Art and Miłość Gallery in Toruń as well as Krytyka Polityczna magazine. He was a finalist of Polish and International contests for best art master’s diploma work, laureate of Konrad Pustoła memory scholarship for socially engaged photographer (2017) and participant of Parallel – European Photo Based Platform (2019–2020). He was a resident of Biennale Warszawa (2020–2021) and Trafó Gallery in Budapest (2021) and a participant of the Visual Narratives Laboratory program in Łódź Filmschool. He is currently a member of the vnLab team.
Etc. is an annual magazine, dedicated to showcasing current artistic production from the Baltic to the Balkans.
Based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, each issue is dedicated to a relevant topic in art and life. Founded to promote emerging artists, its goal is to initiate a dialogue, inspire collaborations, and challenge set views.