One day, perhaps on 24 March 2029, you will open a folder on your computer and see a file you made today. It will look old. And then you will see it freshly, as if for the first time. That is the gift Irenka leaves you: the knowledge that every photograph of the old is, in its own moment, new.
If “my old’s new” – then Irenka is photographing the newness that the old object possesses . A childhood teddy bear missing an eye: the new is the way its remaining eye reflects the window. The bear has not changed; our attention has.
If “my old as new” – a translation issue from Slavic languages (Polish: “moje stare jako nowe”). It implies a transformation: through Irenka’s lens, the old performs newness. This is the most likely meaning, given the Slavic diminutive “Irenka.” maturenl 24 03 29 irenka photographing my old s new
In Zen aesthetics, there is wabi-sabi : the beauty of imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness. Irenka’s work is wabi-sabi with a Dutch precision—clean backgrounds, careful aperture, but always a wrinkle, a scratch, a faded thread left in focus. Why that date? It is early spring. In the Netherlands, March 24th can be cruel or kind—perhaps snowdrops and crocuses are up, but the wind still bites.
– Over tea, you show her the object: your father’s wristwatch. It stopped running in 1997. You have kept it in a drawer. “It’s old and broken,” you say. One day, perhaps on 24 March 2029, you
Irenka sets it on the windowsill. She does not wind it. She photographs the face – not straight on, but from a low angle so the crack in the crystal catches a sliver of reflection. Then she photographs the back – the scratched steel, the faded engraving of a date.
Irenka (the character evoked by the name) practices the opposite: . The first gaze sees what is fresh. The second gaze sees what has lasted. To photograph something old as new is not to lie about its age. It is to recognize that age is not decay but patina —a word from the Latin patina (dish), later meaning the green film on old bronze. Patina is not damage; it is time made visible. That is the gift Irenka leaves you: the
But that makes it universal. are Irenka. You are the one who can photograph your old as new. You do not need permission, a studio, or a vintage camera. You need only to look at what you already own—the chipped mug, the stack of letters, the garden gloves—and give it the second gaze.