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The

Artist

Nominated in
2025
By
Fotofestiwal Lodz
Lives and Works in
Hague
Emilia Martin is a Polish artist and photographer based in The Hague, Netherlands, where in 2022 she graduated from Photography & Society Masters at the Royal Academy of the Art. Working with photography, writing, and sound, she explores how the stories we tell shape the realities we inhabit. She investigates mythologies and tales, and how they fluctuate and shift throughout histories. Through her work, she aims to complicate the binary understandings of fiction and truth and their established aesthetics. Her process is based on careful research and personal, often playful approaches, through which she questions dominant narratives. The belief in storytelling is rooted in her upbringing, where she engaged with both rural mythologies and urban narratives. She grew up between two different realities: a remote farm belonging to her grandmother in rural Eastern Poland and a heavy industry coal mining urban region in the West of the country. The clash between these two realities, the narrative of extractivism against rural mythologies and the proximity of nature, formed a place that continues to ground her artistic practice. Her work is inspired and informed by her rural Polish ancestry and intersectional feminist approaches.
Projects
2024

I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears

"In the Catholic church there are three classes of relics. The first class is body parts of a saint. The second class is things that belonged to a saint, objects they have used and surrounded themselves with. The third class relic is the object that touched the body of a saint. To create the third class relics, the small holes are drilled in the tombs of saints. The objects are lowered through the holes, and once they touch the corpse they are no longer everyday and mundane – they now become sacred" (adapted from Sarah Sentilles "draw your weapons", 2018) I carefully read countless myths and tales of meteorites from around the globe, many so ancient that their origins are lost to time. Some of them recount how cosmic rocks were sent by angered gods or even Satan, while others describe them being chained to the ground, to prevent their return to the heavens. I read of a meteorite that was ground into powder and consumed by those who witnessed its fall, believed to be a divine medicine sent from above. In many communities, these celestial stones became central figures, revered as sites of worship, grief, and sacrifice. Despite these countless stories and myths surrounding meteorites, modern Western science only acknowledged them as a scientific fact in the late 18th century, dismissing centuries of the countless reports as fictional fables, often created by the people like my ancestors - peasants, working long hours under the bare skies. Despite these countless stories and myths surrounding meteorites, modern Western science only acknowledged them as a scientific fact in the late 18th century, dismissing centuries of the countless reports as fictional fables, often created by the people like my ancestors - peasants, working long hours under the bare skies. Meteorites bridge the vastness of outer space and the familiarity of Earthly landscapes, challenging the binary divide between the ordinary and the sacred, the mythical and the true. "I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears" explores the rock as a carrier of stories: a migratory body, a silent visitor filled with human projections and dreams. It questions who has been allowed to claim truths and who has been relegated to the realm of tales. It is a story on how some truths can only live subversively, woven into myths and tales, hidden from dominant narratives. This is a fantasy in which a rock, long seen as mute and voiceless, reclaims its voice to tell thousands of stories, asserting its place within history and imagination, challenging a simplistic and binary definition of representations of truth.
2024

I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears

"In the Catholic church there are three classes of relics. The first class is body parts of a saint. The second class is things that belonged to a saint, objects they have used and surrounded themselves with. The third class relic is the object that touched the body of a saint. To create the third class relics, the small holes are drilled in the tombs of saints. The objects are lowered through the holes, and once they touch the corpse they are no longer everyday and mundane – they now become sacred" (adapted from Sarah Sentilles "draw your weapons", 2018) I carefully read countless myths and tales of meteorites from around the globe, many so ancient that their origins are lost to time. Some of them recount how cosmic rocks were sent by angered gods or even Satan, while others describe them being chained to the ground, to prevent their return to the heavens. I read of a meteorite that was ground into powder and consumed by those who witnessed its fall, believed to be a divine medicine sent from above. In many communities, these celestial stones became central figures, revered as sites of worship, grief, and sacrifice. Despite these countless stories and myths surrounding meteorites, modern Western science only acknowledged them as a scientific fact in the late 18th century, dismissing centuries of the countless reports as fictional fables, often created by the people like my ancestors - peasants, working long hours under the bare skies. Despite these countless stories and myths surrounding meteorites, modern Western science only acknowledged them as a scientific fact in the late 18th century, dismissing centuries of the countless reports as fictional fables, often created by the people like my ancestors - peasants, working long hours under the bare skies. Meteorites bridge the vastness of outer space and the familiarity of Earthly landscapes, challenging the binary divide between the ordinary and the sacred, the mythical and the true. "I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears" explores the rock as a carrier of stories: a migratory body, a silent visitor filled with human projections and dreams. It questions who has been allowed to claim truths and who has been relegated to the realm of tales. It is a story on how some truths can only live subversively, woven into myths and tales, hidden from dominant narratives. This is a fantasy in which a rock, long seen as mute and voiceless, reclaims its voice to tell thousands of stories, asserting its place within history and imagination, challenging a simplistic and binary definition of representations of truth.
Emilia Martin
was nominated by
Fotofestiwal Lodz
in
2025
Show all projects
Each year every member of the FUTURES European Photography Platform nominates a set of artists and projects to become part of the FUTURES network.