Andrzej Maciejewski is a photographer living in rural Ontario, who teaches at nearby Fleming College, Haliburton School of Arts. He recently photographed places across Ontario that take their names from illustrious European capitals. After seeing some of the images from his series, Lisbon-Moscow, on Facebook, I contacted Andrzej about the project; this is what he wrote:

I emigrated to Canada from Poland as a young adult and have spent more than half of my life here, in Ontario. This is perhaps why I became intrigued by place names that were adopted by settlers from cities on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. These names, Lyons, Palermo, Vienna, and more became associated with their new homes so well that many people don’t realize that they did not originate here. Names like Paris or Moscow seem to be the remnants of the influence that Europe exerted in shaping Canadian culture. On the other hand, it would be hard, in most cases, to trace any connection between these Ontario towns and the old cities that lent their names.

Some of the places I photographed are just small villages, some are flourishing cities, but all of them represent how the suburbs and countryside of Ontario look when you travel beyond Toronto and Ottawa.

Above, top to bottom: Odessa, ON, 2013; Vienna, ON, 2013; Moscow, ON, 2013; Athens, ON, 2013. Copyright and courtesy the artist.

These are the Ontario towns that Andrzej has hit so far on his 2013 Lisgon-Mosow tour:
Athens, Belfast, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dresden, Dublin, Geneva, Glasgow, Hanover, Heidelberg, Lisbon, London, Lyons, Manchester, Moscow, Odessa, Palermo, Paris, Seville, Toledo, Turin, Varna, Verona, Vienna, Warsaw, Zurich, Florence.



An exhibition of Andrzej Maciejewski’s work, Garden of Eden, will open on September 23 at the Slocum Galleries of East Tennessee State University.