(Dis)connection.

In 2023, a container town housing around 6,000 migrant workers employed in a petrochemical investment project was built in Biała, Poland. The area remains closed to Polish residents, shaping the everyday experiences of both the migrants living within it and the local citizens who are not allowed to enter.

By establishing a café open to both Polish residents and migrants, filming and editing an ethnographic film, and co-creating photographs with migrants, my project has taken the form of a series of visibility interventions that highlight power relations and illuminate phenomena that are neither entirely new nor unique—yet deeply personal. The research has revealed the complex entanglements of visibility, power, and belonging, in which decisions about where one can live and work are closely tied to employer control. These processes show how sustained invisibility enables ongoing abuses, such as withholding residency permits and salaries. Given migrants’ responsibilities to support their families, these conditions further strengthen and reinforce existing hierarchies of power.

The film (Dis)connection presents the shared experience of living and working at the petrochemical site – an experience common to hundreds of migrants. In contrast, the photographs, selected and described by the migrants themselves, reveal more intimate narratives of migration, care, and the (dis)connections with loved ones living on the other side of the globe.