NEW YORK, NY.- Cut It Short is a collaboration between photographers Michal Solarski and Tomasz Liboska. It is a visual reconstruction of their youth spent in a little town in Southern Poland. It is an autobiographical story about transition between boyhood and adulthood, about friendship, and the passing of time. The title Cut It Short refers to the old tradition in Slavic cultures called »Postrzyzyny«. Young boys have their hair cut in order for them to enter society, a »coming of age« of sorts. The custom is still being practiced in some circles as a kind of symbol of obeying the rules.
From the text by Tomasz Liboska:
We come from Goleszów, one of these places that are simply there on a map. Not a Nowheresville, but not a shadowy town of crooked streets and mysterious doings either. Anyway, it’s in Goleszów that we had our eclectic band of friends, our favourite haunts, and our business to attend to. It’s the early 1990’s, and Freddie Mercury has just kicked the bucket—to be honest, he was a talented guy who had a few good numbers, but his moustache was never a part of our story. We’re a gang of guys in worn-out jeans, we give barbershops a wide berth, and we drop our butts on the ground.
(...)
Our friendship has already survived thirty years, and we aren’t worried about the next thirty. We have been and will be brothers. But not everything went as planned.The dream of our own band and life on the road went up in smoke. We’ve frittered some ideas away, others were throttled by boredom. Time has not stopped; although, for a long stretch, we were convinced we had it in the palm of our hands. But somehow, the bastard managed to wriggle out and start running away. First came universities, various schools, and various towns. After that, each of us blazed his own trail far from Goleszów. Several places have changed beyond recognition, some have been lost forever. This is also a story of our memories. That’s why we are coming back. And, by the way, we’ve started going to the barber.
Michal Solarski and Tomasz Liboska are winners and finalists of international awards and grants such as Leica Oscar Barnack Award, PDN Photo Annual, Photolucida Critical Mass. Both have widely exhibited and published their work, including in The Guardian, Time, Vice, National Geographic, Duży Format, and Wired.
