Artist
Agata Szymanska-Medina
Agata Szymanska-Medina (b.1981) is a Polish visual artist, photojournalist, and storyteller based in Berlin Germany. She graduated in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, Germany. Her work focuses on long-term projects with socio-political issues.
Agata is working as a freelance photojournalist and a cinematographer. Her work has been published in DER SPIEGEL, Stern, DIE ZEIT, SZ-Magazin, The Guardian, ARTE TV, ARD, NZZ, DUMMY Magazine, Greenpeace Magazine, Taz, BuzzFeed, Free Mens World, Spiegel Online, Zenith, SPIEGEL WISSEN, Politiken, Zeit Online, Gazeta Wyborcza, Newsweek.
Agata's projects have been supported by numerous grants, including: the Magnum Foundation, the Pulitzer Center, Journalismfund.eu, Robert Bosch Stiftung and VG Bild-Kunst.
THE LAKE IS YOUR COUSIN, THE STREAM IS YOUR SISTER, THE POND IS HER CHILD
"The world is running out of fresh water. Humanity is polluting, wasting, and consuming the source of all life at an alarming rate. The social, political, and economic consequences of water scarcity are rapidly becoming a destabilizing force, as a struggle for water is taking place all over the world."
Chile, the South American country, is an arena where the battle for natural resources is being waged on a massive scale. The consequences are unmistakable: the parched Atacama Desert, the metropolis of Santiago de Chile slowly dying of thirst, and the destruction of wetlands in the rural areas of the south.
Indigenous communities in Chile, notably the Mapuche, have long been advocating for environmental conservation and fighting against state and corporate exploitation of land and water. This conflict traces back to the 19th century when the Chilean state appropriated Mapuche territory for European settlers, displacing indigenous communities. Since then, the Mapuche have been tirelessly seeking the return of their lands.
In my project, I aim to explore the various stakeholders involved in this conflict, including the Chilean state, corporations like SQM engaged in lithium mining contributing to water scarcity, agriculture sectors such as avocado production affecting small-scale farmers, industries like copper mining, forestry, and cellulose production disrupting ecosystems, and media portrayal of the conflict and framing of indigenous groups, revealing biases and narratives.
Through a visual investigation utilizing photography, texts, archival material, videos, and sound, my project aims to provide insight into the complexities of this conflict and raise awareness about the ongoing struggle of indigenous communities like the Mapuche for their natural resources. By avoiding a purely photojournalistic approach, I intend to create a narrative that conveys journalistic content while engaging audiences in a captivating and thought-provoking manner, emphasizing our interconnectedness with nature.
Donja Nasseri explores museum spaces and liberates secured objects from display cases by taking 3D scans of them. For her project, she will focus on the example of the figure of the ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamun, addressing questions of reparation and appropriation in the context of the restitution debate.
Malte Uchtmann, will use AI to work on an ‘Atlas of Impossibilities’, reflecting on the construction of knowledge through images. He investigates the visual transformation of assumptions, policies and worldviews into knowledge within encyclopaedias across different historical periods and geographical regions.
Verdiana Albano explores her own fragmented and mystery-laden Afro-European history in a photographic process that moves between staging and documentation. Employing the Stasi files belonging to her parents, alongside personal and institutional image archives, she delves into the implications of being born within the framework of the erstwhile German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Agata Szymanska-Medina scrutinises the contemporary challenge of a global freshwater crisis unfolding in Chile through her photographic work – a crisis which poses a threat to humanity at large. Employing a nuanced narrative approach in her documentary photography, incorporating texts, archival material, video and sound, the photographer unveils the actors entangled in this conflict and the motivations driving them.
Through a synthesis of documentation, essay, and portraiture, Lea Greub delves into the intricate dynamics of the ‘business of love’. Her exploration navigates the interplay between love, financial considerations and societal expectations within relationships, particularly in venues like wedding fairs and single-date trips, where these connections are both forged and exhibited.