The artists nominated by
Tomasz Kawecki (1993) is a photographer living and working between Cracow and the Warsaw (Poland). He is studying at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava (Czech Republic), and studied in the Faculty of Architecture at Cracow University of Technology.
Tomasz's work comes from his inner space. Using elements of performance and installation, he mixes fiction with reality, which results in quasi-documentary outcome. In his works, he uses universal symbols that are archetypes in the collective thinking of society. Out of the chthonic of nature, out of its chaos, he intuitively selects fragments from which he creates images. The leitmotif of Tomasz’s works is the dualism present in nature and man.
Tomasz's works has been exhibited and published internationally. Among others, he is a winner of LensCulture ArtPhotography Awards (US), Cracow Photomonth ShowOFF section (PL), Grand Prix IMAnext “Dream” (JPN) and Reframing History Photo Vogue Italia.
Patrycja Wojtas (b. 1990) is a photographer, visual artist. Graduated from the Leon Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theathre in Łódź (diploma in Photography). She got the Ministry of Culture scholarship in 2017, within which she carried out the cycle Kruszywo/Debris, as well as a project of her photobook. She cooperated with the Archeology of Photography Foundation, e.g. preparing publications Emulsja and LUX, as well as during archival and research queries. She presented her works during group and individual exhibitions, among others, within the activity of the curatorial collective Lajt in Szczecin (Cache, 2017) and the TIFFFestival in Wrocław (Debris, 2018). She participated in FOMU Photobook Workshop in Antwerp and published her works in such magazines as Der Greif, Yet Magazine, FotoRoom, Zwykłe Życie.
Her art practice focuses on the relationship between the human being and the landscape. She tracks the history of the ways of space use, of the actions and transformations that leave a series of dispersed marks behind. Including archival materials in her practice, she reveals the changeability of the space in time and constructs a visual essay about memory.
Grzegorz Wełnicki (b.1986) photographer and visual artist. Human in an existential context is the main subject of his works and activities. Master degree with distinction in Photography, Leon Schiller National Film School in Lodz, Poland. His works were exhibited in: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland, 2021; Labirynt Gallery, 2021, Warsaw, Poland (PL), Verzasca Foto Festival, 2020, Switzerland, Fondo Internazionale per la Fotografia Festival, 2015, Italy and published in: British Journal of Photography, Frieze Magazine, Life Framer, Magazyn Szum, DOC! Photo Magazine, GUP Magazine, Internazionale Magazine, Gazeta Wyborcza, Vogue Polska.
Yulia Krivich is a visual artist, curator in Za*Grupa and activist, born in Ukraine, currently based in Warsaw. In her work, she explores issues related to identity, combining elements of activism with personal histories. Her interests include topics related to Eastern Europe and migration. Yulia works with photography and public space.
Graduated from the Department of Architecture of the State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture (2010) in Dnipro (Ukraine) and from the Faculty of Media Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (Poland). She was a participant of the Pla(t)form at the Fotomuseum in Winterthur, Switzerland (2018) and nominated for the Pinchuk Art Center Prize for Young Artists in Ukraine (2018) with her “Daring & Youth project”, recipient of the Solidarity Grant of Krytyka Polityczna (2020) as part of curatorial trio ZA*grupa and is one of the recipients of the Scholarship Program of Warsaw City in 2021.
Kinga Wrona (b. 1983) is a Polish documentary photographer currently living in Krakow. She is a student at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic. In her latest projects, Wrona explores the relationship between humans and nature in relation to climate change, natural disasters and environmental degradation. Her images have been published by FOTO Magazine, The Calvert Journal, National Geographic and New York Post, whilst her projects have been exhibited internationally. Her recent 85 project will soon be exhibited at Circulation(s) Festival in Paris, France.
Lisa Bukreyeva (b. 1993) is a photographer based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Since her journey with photography began in 2019, her works have been presented at a range of museums and festivals, including Photo Elysée, Lausanne; Noorderlicht Festival, Groningen; and Deichtorhallen – Internationale Kunst Und Fotographie, Hamburg. Meanwhile, her images have featured in the likes of Der Spiegel, Zeit, The New York Magazine and Blind Magazine. Bukreyeva is a member of the Burn My Eye collective.
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
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’.
Wojtas is an artist based in Lodź, Poland. She studies at the Film School Lodź and the Institute of Creative Photography in the Czech Republic.
She takes a colourful, chaotic approach to subjects like childhood, education and love. In her works, images of empty classrooms are interspersed with ones of student activities, learning tools and visualizations of discipline and uniformity that as children we were likely not aware of.
Marysia Myanovska (b. 1990) is a Ukrainian photographer, currently based between Kyiv and Hamburg. A graduate of the Victor Marushchenko School of Modern Photography, her work explores connections between particular territories and the people who inhabit them. She is especially interested in stories of young Ukrainians in deprived city districts. In 2022, Myanovska was a finalist of the Hamburg Portfolio Review and the winner of the Nikon Noor Workshop for Photojournalists. Her images have been published by the likes of Vice, The Calvert Journal and Bird in Flight.
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
Mateusz Kowalik is a documentary photographer based in Warsaw, Poland. In his work he explores the issues of contemporary society. He studies at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic. He is a graduate of the Sputnik Photos Mentoring Program and the PARALLEL European Photo Based Platform. He showed his works, among others at festivals in Wrocław, Łódź, Kraków, Hanover, Zagreb and Los Angeles, as well as at the Robert Capa Photography Center in Budapest.
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.
Julia Klewaniec (1996) photographer and culture animator. A graduate of Photography in Film School in Łódź. She is a co-creator of the Picture Doc Foundation with a group of photographers (Duży Pokój Gallery) in Warsaw. Resident in the student section of the "W ramach Sopotu" festival in Poland (2022). Chosen by Fotofestiwal in Łódź for Futures Talents 2022. Talent of the Year 2022 in the Pix.House competition. Her debut project "Silent Racism" was presented among others in Warsaw, Opole, Łódź, Turin, Braga, Bochnia, Copenhagen. At the end of 2022, together with Pix.House and Krzysiek Orłowski, she published the zine "Silent Racism". She is interested in statements about contemporary society, life and relations between people, language and the environment.
Andrey Anro (born 1987 Smarhon, Belarus) Lives and works in Berlin, Germany / Minsk, Belarus. His basic tools are painting, photography, digital collage, and installation. Anro explores topics such as collective memory, historical heritage, politics, dictatorship, religion, disappearance and death. He is author of the photobook "Happy Death Society", 2019.
The artist's works are in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow(MOCAK), Poland, in the ART4 Museum in Moscow, in private collections in Lithuania, Sweden, Canada, Russia, and the USA. In 2007 he graduated from MMT L.B. Krasina (Moscow, Russia), speciality "Advertising".
Ihar Hancharuk (b. 1986) is post-documentary photographer and visual artist from Belarus. With a background in foreign languages, his creative work makes use of photographic and digital archives, including video footage. Haranchuk’s projects refer to questions of national and personal identity, collective memory, and the influence of mass media on contemporary life; he also addresses the patriarchal violence to which he was exposed during a period of mandatory military service, concluded in 2010. Among others, his works have been exhibited at Krakow Photomonth, Poland; National Center for Contemporary Arts, Belarus; and Circulation(s) Festival, France.
Milena Soporowska is a visual artist based in Poland. Her work explores, among other things, the intertwining of everyday life with magic and the occult, questioning the concept of home as a safe, familiar haven. She is interested in the combination of alternative medicine and psychoanalysis, and the overlap between Christianity, esotericism and folk spirituality.
She graduated in Art History, presenting her master's thesis on the influence of spiritualistic and mediumistic photography on art in the light of Freud's category of unheimlich. She also studied photography, museology and psychotronics. Moreover, Milena is a graduate of the Sputnik Photos mentoring programme.
Visual and sound artist based in Łódź (Poland). In his artistic work, he uses photography, sound, video, installation. His exhibitions are site-specific.
His artistic work is closely related to the technological workshop, experimentation and the search for suitable means of expression to communicate content. He is interested in the interpenetration of the fields of art, where sound, image and space can provoke impulses through which intuition complements logical thinking – where the exposure to a work of art builds the experience of art.
Bartłomiej Talaga is a graduate of and teacher at the Film School in Łódź. In his work, he shares his own experience with students and focuses on the purposefulness and legitimacy of gestures that lead to personal and authentic expression. He is also a co-founder of the TON magazine (ton-mag.pl) and a designer of photography books.
Karolina Ćwik is visual artist based in Poland. Her projects are like intimate diaries, in which she documents her experience of being a mother and an artist.
She is a student of the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava (the Czech Republic), winner of the PDN Emerging Photographer, last year's laureate of the Konrad Pustoła's Remembrance Scholarship, winner of the Sputnik Photos Project titled "As you can see". Her works have been published e.g. in The Calvert Journal, Culture.pl, FK magazine.
Maxim Sarychau is a visual artist and photojournalist, based in Minsk, Belarus. He works on long-term visual projects on the edge of photography, journalism and art. He deals with the topics of violence of various forms and grades, both from authoritarian regimes and within traditional society. He focuses on political and human dimensions of collective memory and history.
Maxim is a co-founder of SHKLO – online platform about Belarusian photography and visual arts. From 2020 he is a member of Inland - international cooperative of 13 photographers.
Maxim’s work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions including shows at the Latvian Museum of Photography (2020, Riga), Kasarna Karlin (2018, Prague) and CECH (2017, Minsk). He was published in Wall Street Journal, Stern Crime, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Courrier International, Meduza, The Telegraph, Le Monde Diplomatique among others.
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.
Maria Guțu was born in 1996 in Moldova, Republic of. In 2022 she finished her studies at Docdocdoc School of Modern Photography, Saint Petersburg. In 2020 she finished her studies at, Academy of Music, Theatre, and Fine Arts in Chisinau she studied cinematography for 4 years. In 2018 she became one of 30 women photographers under 30 years by Artpil. In 2019 she received a CDFD(Centre of Documentary Photography) grant, Bucharest, Romania. In 2020 she became a finalist of 2020 People Photography Award by The Independent Photographer. From 2021 Maria is a member of WomenPhotograph.
In 2022 she was shortlisted at Sony World Photography Awards, Open Competition: Portraiture. In 2023 she was shortlisted at Sony National & Regional Awards. She had collective exhibitions in: Romania, France and The United States. Maria is interested in documentary photography, remote places, youth, notion of home and the relation between humans and environment.
Paweł Jaszczuk (b. 1978) graduated from School of Visual Arts Sydney in 2004. He currently lives and works in Warsaw (Poland) and in Tokyo (Japan).
His work has been exhibited in different countries, such as Austria, Poland, China and Denmark. His recent project ¥€$U$ was showed at Hamburg Triannale in 2018.
Marcin Kruk (b. 1982) lives and works in Rzeszow, Poland. With a background in Archival and Historical Studies, he currently studies Photography at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic. A Fujifilm Poland ambassador, Kruk is also a member of the Archive of Public Protest (A-P-P). His practice revolves around a series of long-term documentary projects.
Elena Subach was born in Chervonohrad, Ukraine. She obtained a degree in Economics, but started to work as a textile designer. Elena comes to photography in 2012, living in Lviv and joining 5x5/Dzyga art community.
Main topics in her practice are: life in province, religion, connections between mythology and identity, her private relations with the world and her own country, with life and death. Her working method — continuous travels to small towns. She looks for something unique — people, communities, as well as place sand objects they produce. Elena says that provincial towns can be compared to separated islands, which are far enough from the mainland for evolution to goin a very unique way. She collects peculiarities of local cultures, since is sure they are on the edge of extinction, caused by globalization as well as just poverty.
Her project “Grandmothers on the Edge of Heaven” is a private family story, but also a reflection on the gap between generations. Which is multiplied in her case by the gap between two countries and two political systems: Soviet Union and modern Ukraine.
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.
Specialised in Fine Art photography and documentary photography, Iacopo Pasqui (b. 1984, Florence) explores the relationship between man-nature-landscape and social behaviour. He often uses photography as a metaphor and tool to critique and observe contemporary society, favouring projects with medium and long timeframes.
He has won numerous prizes and competitions including “Giovane Fotografia Italiana #07” at Fotografia Europea Festival in Reggio Emilia (2019), Leica Talent 24x36, 2011/2012, Off Site Art promoted by ArtBridge, 2014, Contemporary Landscapes and Places in Transformation – Artist residency in Italy promoted by MiBACT and GAI, 2017.
He is among the photographers included in the volume History of Photography in Italy. From 1839 to present by G. D’Autilia, Einaudi, Torino 2012. He is the author of books and publications and has participated in various solo and collective exhibitions, most recently in the exhibition 1999 at the Museo MAXXI in Rome, 2017. He has taken part in artistic residencies and lectures in the University of Perugia and Teramo.
Katarzyna Wąsowska is a photographer and book artist based in Poznań, Poland. Her art practice juggle between subjective, unreal creation photography and documentary. Referring to scientifical and parascientifical literature, researching the archives or interviews she tries to construct stories about specific places or certain communities, far from the facts but reliable historically.
In her works she often focuses on issues connected with migration or its destiny. She is mostly interested in the problematic of constructing identity and how people define themselves and the land of their origins. Recently she is involved in collective photographic research about polish migration to South America. It happens that she gets out of the material world and enters other dimensions of perceiving the world, exploring the paranormal events and believes not connected with any religious system. Finds collective creation as the best way for making photography as permanent process of putting individual thoughts in doubts.
She was born in 1990 by the Polish seaside in Gdańsk. Graduated in Photography on Academy of Arts in Poznań. She is also part of Ostrøv publishing collective.
Łukasz Rusznica (b. 1980) is a photographer, curator, and educator based in Wrocław, Poland. Since graduating in cultural studies from the University of Wrocław, he has exhibited his works in galleries and museums in Poland and abroad.
He is the author of the photobooks Smog, Near, Infra, Toskana, European Eyes on Japan Vol. 18, and The Most Important Things I Do Not Tell You At All, designed by Thomas Schostock. His works have been published in SZUM, BIURO, LaVie, Machina, POST, and Bad to the Bone. He is a winner of the Show OFF Section of the Krakow Photomonth Festival 2012 and the WARTO 2015 Award.
In 2016 he was selected to take part in European Eyes on Japan—a unique project inviting photographers from European Capitals of Culture to capture everyday life in Japan. He is the winner of Griffin Art Space Prize—Lubicz 2017 for the best portfolio at Krakow Photomonth 2017. Rusznica currently runs a photography gallery, Miejsce przy Miejscu, dedicated to promoting emerging photographers from Poland and abroad.
Anna Orłowska received an MFA from the Photography Department at the National Film School in Łódz, Poland (2011) and an undergraduate degree from the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava,Czech Republic (2013).
She has participated in numerous group shows including reGeneration2: Tomorrow’s Photographers Today presented at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne and the Aperture Foundation in New York. She held several solo exhibitions including Futerał at Wschód Gallery, Sunday Night Drama at Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Leakage at the Panopticon in Stockholm and at the Discovery Award show at the Rencontres d’Arles 2015. In 2013 she was awarded a scholarship for the PhotoGlobal program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. In 2017 she received the Overseas Photographer Higashikawa Award.
Diana Lelonek (b. 1988) graduated from the Faculty of Multimedia Communication at the University of Arts in Poznań. Her practice is based on photography combined with other media. She is interested in activities related to BioArt.
Lelonek won several international competitions, among others: Show Off during the Kraków Photomonth Festival and ReGeneration 3 at the Musée de l’Elysée in Switzerland. Her works appear, among others, in the collection of the Museum of Photography in Lausanne, Center of the Contemporary Art in Warsaw etc
Lena Dobrowolska & Teo Ormond-Skeaping are an Artist collaboration working with a combination of documentary photography, documentary film, installation, interactive documentary and research in order to produce multifaceted projects that are intended to reflect the complexities of today’s world. Since 2012 they have been working on projects relating to Climate Change and the Anthropocene.
Their ongoing work focuses on the relationship between climate change, development, environmental degradation, human rights and geopolitics through which they consider how documentary film and photography inherently reveal the presence of pervasive power relationships , power structures and the mechanism of othering within the political landscape of our globalized society. Through a study of the landscape, the portrait and the still life they consider the shifting cultural meaning of nature, how this is changed by the definition of the Anthropocene and how we may decolonize nature.
They have worked extensively in climate change stress zones producing work in China, Nepal, Bangladesh, Uganda and Laos PDR. Their work has been exhibited internationally including exhibitions at Krakow Photomonth (2016), Fotofestiwal (2014), Fotograf festival (2014), Mpm Gallery (2015) and The Grey House Foundation (2016).
Olena Morozova is a visual artist from Kyiv, Ukraine. She is interested in themes of spirituality, sexuality, gender identity, stereotypes, psychological and mental disorder, family relationships. "Photography is my passion, lifestyle, philosophy, way of thinking, seeing, understanding the world around me and my inner world, searching for my reflections, feelings and emotions, self-development and movement forward” - she explains. Olena has been engaged in photography since 2015. Her teachers were: Alexander Yakimchuk, Dimitri Bogachuk, Vladimir Seleznev, Viktoria Sorochinski, Sergey Melnichenko and others. Her works were presented in Finnish Museum of Photography (2022), Odesa Photo Days (2021), Photo Kiev Fair (2019, 2020).
