The artists nominated by
Masha Svyatogor (b.1989) is a Belarusian visual artist based in Minsk.
She graduated from the Belarusian State University (2013) where she studied philology.
Masha debuted in 2017 with a solo exhibition “Kurasoushchyna, My Love” in Minsk, Belarus.
Her work has been shown internationally, including the festivals Circulation(s) in Paris (2020); Fotofestiwal Lodz (2020); Vintage Photo Festival in Bydgoszcz, Poland (2020); Month of Photography in Minsk (2019); Batumi Photodays (2019); Kolga Tbilisi Photo Festival (2018); Obscura Festival of Photography in Malaysia (2018); Fotopub Festival in Novo Mesto, Slovenia (2017); Queering Yerevan festival (2017); Warsaw Photo Days (2017) etc.
In 2018, she received the Best Photographer award from the Month of Photography in Minsk festival.
Masha works on personal long-term art projects relating to contemporary issues, post-soviet history, society, identity. In her latest projects, the artist creates works, using official photos from magazines published in the USSR and her own photographs. Newly created images, based on communist symbols and typical forms of propaganda messages, show the Soviet culture in a surrealistic mirror.
Her works are sometimes on the verge of kitsch and absurd. Thanks to the combination of elements from different historical and aesthetic orders, the artist focuses on eccentricities and paradoxes of everyday life in modern Belarus. She builds a critical message and encourages the viewers to go beyond their own habits and preconceptions, to take a better and closer look.
Website: www.mashasvyatogor.com
Instagram: @svyatogormasha
Agnieszka Sejud is a photographer, visual artist, activist, part of artistic duo KWAS. She is living and working in Poland. Sejud is currently studying BA Photography at Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic.
Her practice works with photography, collage and installation, often experiments with the medium. She mainly explores topics of identity, personal freedom and systems of oppressions. In her life and work, she questions existing rules and binding canons. Sejud’s main inspirations are daily life, vulgarity, ugliness, dreams and visions.
Marta Bogdańska is a Polish photographer, visual artist, cultural manager. She holds a MA degree in Philosophy from Warsaw University. She graduated from the Academy of Photography, School of Seeing & Open Institute in Warsaw. Marta lived and worked in Lebanon for 8 years, where she realised artistic & cultural projects. Member of APP (Archive of Public Protests).
With additional background in gender studies & activism Marta’s artistic work focuses on geopolitical and social issues, gossip & fiction, as well as personal experiences. She experiments with various media including participatory workshops and sound installations..
Marta’s work was shown e.g. at OBSCURA Festival of Photography in Malaysia, at TIFF Festival in Wroclaw, at ODESA PHOTO DAYS 2020, BLICA - First Biennale of Arts in Lebanon. Photobook presenting SHIFTERS project is shortlisted for Mack First Book Award 2020. She was selected for several residencies, most recently Landskrona Foto Residency (2020), as well as Nida Art Colony, Gasworks, and Botkyrka Konsthal. She took part in ‘Re-Tooling Residencies Project’ organised by CCA Warsaw. She created & curated ‘Fenix Cities: workshops and exhibitions in Warsaw and Beirut’.
We are the Brave Boy Studio, independent film production company founded in 2019 by Jan Kazimierz Barnas and Wojciech Kamerys in Lodz, Poland. We provide comprehensive film production, from the script to post-production. We have worked with artists and labels from France, Czech Republic, Israel, Bosnia, Kazakhstan, Estonia and Russia, among others. We also produce our own films. What we care about above all are valuable productions. Film is our whole life.
Jan Kazimierz Barnaś – born in Sandomierz on September 12, 1991; currently permanently connected with Lodz. Student at the Faculty of Visual Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in lodz in the specialty of Photography and Multimedia. In his works, he often takes up the subject of the destruction of the image, his main interest is film and video art. As the FILMMAKER on his account, he has several etudes, video-arts, animations, music videos and feature films.
Wojciech Kamerys – born in 1994, student of the faculty of Photography and Multimedia Communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in lodz. Practice based on photography, combined with other media. Participant of several exhibition in Lodz, Gdynia and Bydgoszcz. Cooperation with Academy of Music in Lodz, and The National Film, Television and Theatre School of Lodz and MS1 in Lodz. Theme of works based in relation between human and architecture, funcion of light and shadow in a classic silver photography.
Ela Polkowska is a photographer based in Warsaw, Poland. She is interested in documenting people, places and objects on the margins of everyday life and subjects relegated from the dominant public memory or hidden from consciousness.
Studied Art History and Film Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In 2013 graduated from the Academy of Photography in Warsaw. From 2013 to June 2014 participated in the Mentorship Programme by Sputnik Photos. From 2015 to 2019 student of photography at the Institut of Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic. Participant of the 2nd cycle of PARALLEL - European Photo based Platform (2018-2019).
Her main projects are "Splinter", a story of people living in continuous disorder, "When Objects Are Always Similar” about visual parallels between pictures and „Firmly Pinch The Skin Together” about tension, pressure and balance in everyday life.
