Artist
Karolina Gembara
Karolina Gembara is a photographer and researcher whose work revolves around themes such as home, belonging, migration, and practices of care. Much of her recent activity has been devoted to politics and activism. She uses photography and video as tools and pretexts for collaboration, fostering creative processes.
In 2013, she published her debut book "Fitting Rooms," which examines the role of women in her generation. Between 2009 and 2016, Karolina was based in India, where she produced her second book "When We Lie Down, Grasses Grow From Us," exploring the migratory experience (published by GOST Books in 2019). She is an editor of several Strike Newspapers published by the Archive of Public Protest.
In recent years, she has initiated and completed several participatory projects involving refugees, creating spaces for collaboration and self-expression.
Karolina is currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation (K. Kieślowski Film School), which centers around the subjective narratives of historical migrations. She is a member of Sputnik Photos and the A-P-P
Stay Home
Research conducted on the housing conditions of refugees in Poland leads to the following conclusions: foreigners living in accommodation centers are subjected to spatial segregation, making it challenging for them to learn the Polish language, establish contacts with local communities, and reduces their chances in the local labor market (these places are often far away from cities and settlements, sometimes located in open fields or forests with poor communication). Renting a flat on one's own is frequently an extremely difficult task (the decision to leave the center requires moving out within 30 days), especially for families with many children. They encounter discrimination already at the stage of a telephone conversation with a potential landlord (due to the language barrier of the parents, it is the children who are forced to make the calls and negotiate the details of the rent), which discourages them from further searching but also increases the risk of homelessness.
Refugees mostly live in sub-standard conditions. Their dwellings are moldy, damp, under-equipped with basic furniture, overcrowded, in need of repairs, and sometimes general renovation. Meanwhile, the provision of decent housing facilitates integration into local communities and accelerates coping with post-traumatic stress disorder.
I encountered the aforementioned problems as a photographer and activist. I was engaged in retrofitting refugee housing, transportation, etc., but it was only during the pandemic that I realized how fortunate I was to have a safe place—a home—where I could retreat, dedicate myself to studying or working remotely without being exposed to the virus. Centers for foreigners did not offer such security.
I became involved in the process of finding accommodation for first two, and then one family, accompanying them throughout. In collaboration with the eldest daughter of the M. family, we interviewed potential landlords, documented living conditions in the center, the move, and the new flat. Alija is a co-author of the materials presented here.
The Message
Since the summer of 2021, Lithuania and Poland have been brutally pushing back migrants attempting to cross the Eastern border of the EU. Thousands of them, including infants, endure hunger, cold, and violence from border guards. Many have already perished in forests and drowned in the Bug River, at the border with Poland. Numerous individuals were compelled into camps, forced to wait in a state of abeyance.
In the Medininkai Camp, southeast of Vilnius, the prisoners, both men and women, were prohibited from speaking directly to anyone outside. To circumvent this restriction, a Red Cross worker, Rokas Misikonis, asked them to create images. They were provided with paints, brushes, and, instead of canvases, doors dismantled from old buildings. The doors carry a message, but for many migrants, they still remain closed.
Authors: John Nsingi-Mwendo, Yaiza Khudeda, Haveen Jasim Haji, Aritin Amazed Dakhil, Holya Karo Quasim Quasim, Shilan Saleem, Roza.
Mykhaylo Palinchak has dedicated himself to documenting the daily lives of the Ukrainian people since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In his two photo series’ Sirens’ whisper and Highlight, Mykhaylo documents places of Russian war crimes all over Ukraine, destroyed civilian objects and houses, but also the extraordinary courage and solidarity of Ukrainian society. Both series demonstrate this documentary photographer’s unique style, extraordinary sensitivity to detail and excellent editing skills.
Maria Gutu drew our attention with the classical form of her photography. Maria photographs young people, often at the moment of transition from childhood to adolescence. Each of the gazes Gutu photographs is authentic, not only because she approaches her characters with great visual sensitivity, but also because she looks at them with understanding.
Childhood is also one of the key subjects of Michalina Kacperak's project. Soft Spot is the artist's personal story about her own family experience of alcoholism. Michalina is the eldest of four sisters – the offspring of an alcoholic father who is currently on the path to sobriety. “Among us, only Zosia clings to her childhood,” Kacperak says, and as a result, it was Zosia who became the inspiration for the project.
In nominating Grzegorz Wełnicki for FUTURES Talent, we wanted, above all, to recognise his consistent, long-term work on his project No'am. Since the beginning of his creative path, Wełnicki has been interested in themes of transience, corporeality and spirituality. In the project No’am he approached the theme of transhumanism in a multithreaded story about death.
Karolina Gembara is a photographer, researcher and activist who uses photography both as a tool and a pretext for collaboration, often involving people with a migratory experience. Gembara uniquely manages to combine extraordinary empathy and sensitivity with an excellent academic background and this makes her one of the most interesting artists in the Polish visual arts landscape.