On the road
MOVING PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIO IN LOWER SILESIA
Moving Photography Studio is an interdisciplinary project alluding to the craft of
mobile photographers. Since 2012 Agnieszka Pajączkowska drives along
the Eastern border of Poland in her old Volkswagen T3. She prepares photoportraits
on request of people who she meets. After preparation, she prints the portraits
and exchanges them for groceries and conversation.
The journey along the Eastern border included the regions of Podlasie, Lublin, Subcarpathia, Warmia and Masuria. The author collects a visual and textual documentation of the process: www.wedrownyzakladfotograficzny.pl.
In the summer of 2016, Moving Photography Studio will embark on a trip through Lower Silesian villages – collecting experiences and stories from encountered inhabitants.
The project of Moving Photography Studio combines the tools from visual arts field with a dash of documentary, and experience of working with communities. Author uses photography as a medium on the border of art, research method, documentary tradition, history of craft, everyday practice. Her biggest interest lies in memories, traces and narratives connected with: historical processes (interwar period, shaping of the border, postwar displacements, communist Poland), everday life in villages, female perspective, perceptions about the East, beliefs about photography.
The offer to create a photographic portrait is a pretext to meet people and learn about their stories. Photography – printed on site, alluding to the functional and domestic character of family photos – is a “currency” exchanged for stories and vegetables, fruit, eggs, meals, water, as well as time spent together. The portraits belong only to the photographed individuals and are not published by the author.
On the exhibition a selection of photographs and texts will be presented, collected during the five years of Moving Photography Studio when it travelled around Lower Silesia.
The exhibition comprises series of photographs and accompanying text capturing this year’s trip of Moving Photography Studio around Lower Silesia.
Agnieszka Pajączkowska – a graduate of Cultural Studies, researcher of everyday photography practices, the creator of interdisciplinary and cultural projects, a promoter of cultural activites, a PhD student at the Institute of Polish Culture of UW. Since 2012 has has been in charge of Mobile Photography Studio (www.wedrownyzakladfotograficzny.pl). In her activities she combines academic thinking with creative practice and promotion of culture. She is interested in the history of photography craft and its utility, as well as everyday practices, archives and local history. She was a co-creator of the following projects: Tożsamości odzyskane [trans. Identities Recovered], Interwencje, Migawki i Seminarium wizualne [Interventions; Snapshots; Visual seminar] (Towarzystwo Inicjatyw Twórczych “ę”), Wizualny Eksperyment Muzealny [Visual Museum Experiment] (Stowarzyszenie Katedra Kultury). Coś, co zostanie [Something that Remains]. Local activities with Zofia Rydet Sociological Record (The Zofia Rydet Foundation). She belongs to the Traveling Culture Animators, she co-creates the Kolektyw Terenowy [Terrain Collective], which develops the idea of combinig ethnography, promotion and art. In 2015 she received a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in the field of “Visual arts”. She collaborates with Towarzystwo Inicjatyw Twórczych “ę”, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, History Meeting House.
Agnieszka Pajączkowska
Moving Photography Studio
1 – 11 September 2016
Marta’s Lech Studio
46 Ruska Street, 3rd floor, Wrocław
