Artist
Michalina Kacperak
Michalina Kacperak is a photographer and visual artist based in Warsaw, Poland. Her practice engages both documentary and artistic or scenographic experiments. She holds a master’s degree in philosophy. She’s a student at Film School in Lodz in the field of photography. The most important part of her work is devoted to personal, complex stories which bring up the themes related to childhood, memory, social exclusion and identity in the broad sense.
In 2023, she debuted her solo exhibition with the project "Soft Spot" at the Biennale of Photography - NEXT 2023 in Riga. Laureate of the 12th edition of Circulation(s) festival in Paris (2022). Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at venues such as: Bialystok Interphoto Festival (2021), the Fringe section of the Photomonth in Krakow (2022), Frames of Sopot Festival (2022) and Titanikas Exhibition Halls in Vilnius (2022). Her project “Soft Spot” has been published in OVER Journal issue #3 (2022) and awarded first prize in the Bartur PhotoAward in the Ann Lesley Bar-Tur Student category (2022).
Soft Spot
Our family is devoid of adults, those who grew up remained children.
"Soft Spot" weaves a multifaceted narrative about a world where everyone defies their expected roles. Adults act like children, and children bear the weight of adulthood. But in the story, no one is straightforward.
As the eldest among my four sisters, we are the offspring of an alcoholic father who is currently on the path to sobriety. Among us four, only Zosia clings to her childhood. I've always found her imagination, courage and self-acceptance fascinating.
Our childhood developed among a constant struggle with loneliness, destabilization, lack of closeness and an enduring sense of guilt. One parent battled alcoholism, both were frequently absent, and our emotions became deeply scarred. A dysfunctional home, paradoxically, creates a strong connection that later constraints your actions. Even after leaving, it lingers within you, and upon returning, you yearn to escape – impossible for a child to fulfill.
In this tale, imagination becomes the safe haven. For Zosia, her room transforms into an entire world, a realm untouched by falseness. Some places become havens where fantasy and play act as a survival mechanism, charming reality and filling in the gaps. My sister has graciously opened her world to me, allowing me to return to our family home, confront my past, and most importantly, engage in play with the hope of finally growing up.
The project merges photographs documenting the room, images of collaborative compositions, and portraits of my sister, our father, and even our mother, who once shied away from playing with us during my childhood. All the photographs showcase the same space – a child's room. This transformed setting is both an interpretation of our reality and a metaphorical visualization of my childhood memories and emotions. It also serves as a chronicle of the healing process, attempting to break through emotional isolation and reconnect with the inner child through play and a return to the world of fantasy.
Approaching the story from an adult perspective while embracing a child's viewpoint, I aim to narrate a tale of a poignant inner void and the desperate attempts to fill it – a journey marked by the improper experience of childhood and the subsequent loss of connection with one's younger self.
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.