Horizons: The ERGO Hestia Group's 2022 Annual Report

Ergo Hestia Horizons. The ERGO Hestia Group's 2022 Annual Report is a story about the Baltic Sea in three chapters: Sea, Architecture, and Humanity. Each of these elements serves as a pretext to examine and broaden one's horizons on key issues related to the Baltic region. The sea is a chapter on ecology, water conditions, and humans' impact (or lack thereof) on the environment. Architecture is the story of the urbanistic development of the region and the specificity of Baltic architecture. The Human chapter touches upon humans' symbolic and real role as a link between the natural and the cultural. It emphasizes human responsibility not only for the environment in which they live but also for the elements they encounter.

"The ERGO Hestia Group's Annual Report is an important publication every year because it not only presents financial indicators but - perhaps most importantly - focuses on the company's values," says Maria Rosa, Director of Marketing and PR at the Sopot insurer, as well as President of the Hestia Artistic Journey Foundation.

The foundation of this narrative is the photographs by Aleksander Małachowski, known as Hashtagalek. He is the most popular architecture photographer in Poland, with nearly 80,000 followers on his Instagram profile. In "Horizons," Małachowski presents the Baltic Sea from perspectives we are familiar with and those that we rarely notice or encounter in our daily lives. He illustrates the power of water in the face of architecture and humanity that depend on it, functioning at their intersection. In search of shots for "Horizons," Małachowski visited four Baltic cities: Sopot, Riga, Tallinn, and Helsinki.

Hashtagalek's photographs are complemented by texts that expand horizons on the ecology, history, and anthropology of the Baltic Sea. Prof. Jan Marcin Węsławski, Prof. Jacek Piskozub, Dr. Hab. Karol Kuliński, Magdalena Milert, and Karolina Sulej were invited to collaborate on this project.

The report was prepared by the Hestia Artistic Journey Foundation and published by the ERGO Hestia Group.

The editor of the edition and the author of the concept is Piotr Jędrzejowski.