“Jungftak, (n.) a Persian bird, the male of which had only one wing, on the right side, and the female only one wing, on the left side; the male had a hook of bone, and the female an eyelet of bone, and it was by uniting hook and eye that they were able to fly.”

Whatever encyclopaedia we reach for, we are used to treating it as a source of knowledge about the world, people and phenomena. A source about which we have no doubt that the information it contains is verified and true. But what would happen if it were otherwise?

“The Baldock Beer Disaster, occurred on March 14, 1904, when an unstable storage room floor collapsed at the Simpson Brewery, in what is now Simpsons Drive, in the North Hertfordshire town of Baldock in England. Around 300 barrels and crates of beer fell three floors through the brewery. Some surrounding streets were temporarily hit by a wave of beer, which reportedly destroyed three houses and killed a dog.” 

Weronika Gęsicka undertook the heroic project of searching old encyclopaedias for entries that had been created in order to prove plagiarism in the form of illegal reprinting of their content. She illustrated each of the headwords she found in her own way: by modifying stock photos and creating new images using artificial intelligence. In this way, a unique Encyclopædia of fake events, animals, characters and objects was created.

“Mountweazel, Lillian Virginia, 1942-1973, American photographer. She was awarded government grants to make a series of photo-essays of unusual subject matter, including New York City buses, the cemeteries of Paris and rural American mailboxes.”

But behind this seemingly amusing collection lies a very important question: how can we function in an age of information manipulation and fake news, when even encyclopaedias cannot be trusted? What sources can we rely on to ensure that they do not provide fabricated data? How can we distinguish between fake news and reliable information?

Weronika Gęsicka's creative images are accompanied by an essay written by Charlotte Cotton, an internationally renowned curator and photography theorist. 

Partner: Fundacja Artystyczna Podróż Hestii

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Images: Weronika Gęsicka
Essay: Charlotte Cotton
Book design: Aneta Kowalczyk

Photo editing: Weronika Gęsicka, Katarzyna Sagatowska, Aneta Kowalczyk, Grzegorz Kosmala
Image processing: Aneta Kowalczyk

Selection and preparation of entries: Weronika Gęsicka
Proof reading: Ben Borek 

Cover: hard, cotton with hot stamping
Paper: Munken Pure 130g

Format: 225x300 mm
Number of pages: 252
Number of photographs: 862
Language version: English 

Print run: 1500 copies 
Printing: Argraf (Warsaw, Poland)
Cover: Marceli Printery

Publication date: November 2024 
Publisher: BLOW UP PRESS & JEDNOSTKA Gallery (Warsaw, Poland)
ISBN: 978-83-965969-6-3