Welcome to the latest “Rent Free By Fidi“, which for this episode takes place in the Polish capital city, Warsaw. With it being set there, you might be able to guess the cast…correct, it features the wonderful Grey Area crew. From Kuba, to Agata, Michał & Filip, we get all our office faves. Fidi himself requested the images be shown in sequence, and as such, we obliged, ending with the zine’s text at the bottom. Enjoy!

Intro by Roland Hoogwater.

Image & Text by Friedjof Feye.

“On my last trip through Warsaw, I unexpectedly stumbled upon a small treasure: books lay in front of a doorstep – old poetry collections from the 1960s, free to take away.

The format was very compact, the design was simple but appealing, the paper yellowed yet vibrant. As I leafed through them, I immediately felt that they were more than just printed pages – they bore traces of a past life.

The poems were written by Polish authors whose biographies were often as moving as their words. Some of them had fought in the resistance against the Nazis, helped the persecuted; others later resisted the communist regime and continued writing despite censorship – undeterred, full of passion. Today, they are all deceased. And yet their books lay there, in the light drizzle, seemingly forgotten, awaiting their final rescue.

I took some of these volumes with me – not out of pity, but out of respect. In the hours and days that followed, the desire to breathe new life into these books grew within me. I decided to complement them with my own photographs — snapshots of present-day Warsaw, captured during my stay.

Thus, in this project, past and present collide: the voices of yesterday, the images of today. A silent homage to people whose words live on — and a personal tribute to a city full of stories.”