My portfolio has been chosen AGAIN as part of 100 Curators 100 Days Project, this time by Didier Damiani, Luxemburg

2012 Daylight Photo Award, juror's pick: Ula Wiznerowicz, Behind the Curtain

I am so pleased I was selected as a juror's pick of the 2012 Daylight Portfolio Award.

CDS Publishing and Awards Director Alexa Dilworth describes what drew her attention as she made her way through hundreds of portfolios submitted for the 2012 Daylight Photo Awards, and what distinguished the body of work she ultimately chose: 

In the end, I could only go with the portfolio that drew me in the most, that compelled me to consider it the longest, with utmost attention and feeling: Ula Wiznerowicz’s Behind the Curtain. Below is the juror’s statement I wrote for Michael and Taj for their use in announcing the 2012 Daylight Photo Awards winner and jurors’ picks:

                 

                     From 'Behind the Curtain' Photograph by Ula Wiznerowicz 

“Ula Wiznerowicz’s photographs in Behind the Curtain come together in the way a collection of short stories might, stories woven together to tell a larger story both elusive and straight-up sad and difficult. Ula went back to the place she grew up, Palmowo, Poland, to photograph place, people, and problems—specifically, men and women struggling with alcoholism, either themselves or collaterally. And she was also looking at, thinking about, her own past. As she says, ‘I know all of the people in my pictures, their wives, children, the interiors of their homes, and the views from their windows.’ This understanding is manifest in her pictures. Rather than put a frame around public, more predictably dramatic, portrayals of her subject, she shares with us a private view, an atmosphere, a way of being that she both reveals and creates. The formalism of the photographs plays both against and with the tumult, resignation, and loneliness of these very particular lives lived out in a quiet, slowly disappearing community. I found myself revisiting this world behind curtains over and over. The quotes that accompany the photographs—as spare yet revealing as the images—drew me further into these rooms where people sit, wait, sleep.”

Read full article on Center for Documentary Studies’ blog

Down the drain

I came across this article which shows the consequences of Tomislawice Mine's works.
Down the drain, by Wojciech Kosc
A large, shallow lake in Poland could disappear if an open-cast mining project goes ahead.

Lake Goplo is Poland's ninth largest lake. It covers an area of 21.8 square kilometres and has an average depth of 4.4 metres. The Lake Goplo Nature Park, part of the Natura 2000 network, spreads out over more than 2,300 hectares, while the expanded protected area is more than 10,000 hectares.

The lake is also linked to the very beginnings of Polish statehood. There's some, albeit feeble, archaeological evidence that a Slavic tribe which settled around the lake might have later progressed to become the leading force in bringing together what is now the territory of Poland under more or less unitary control.

An old legend has it that a rogue king residing by the lake treacherously poisoned his power rivals and threw their bodies into Lake Goplo. He didn't get away with the crime, however, as thousands of rats emerged from the lake, cornered the king atop the castle tower and ate him.

Thus Poles thinking about Lake Goplo entertain quite a mix of factual and cultural information. But it isn't the lake's stuff of legend that made newspaper headlines recently.

                            image © Ula Wiznerowicz

             

New project

With a useful advises from Steven Macleod and help from Diane Smith my new project has got its shape now and it's almost finished. Here is a small selection of 'Displacement; photographs from the shadow of the Tomislawice Mine'.


‘Displacemen; photographs from the shadow of the Tomislawice Mine’:

In January 2010 the ‘Konin’ mine opened in central western Poland. A series of open pits scattered across the area it is run by the State owned company Konin Mine, which extracts brown coal to be used by power engineering industry.

Lignite or ‘brown coal’ supplies 93 percent of Poland’s energy and three nearby power stations burn materials from the Konin mines. The initial impact of open cast mining is very physical, with local lakes disappearing, forests drying up water supplies dwindling. Local residents and Greenpeace activists argue that open-cast mining, which sucks up water within a several-kilometre radius, will rapidly drain the shallow Lake Goplo within few years.

I documented and interviewed the families who have been left on the edge of The Tomislawice Stripmine, both those that have stayed and those that have received new housing through compulsory displacement or voluntary relocation packages. 

                         all images © Ula Wiznerowicz

PHOTO/arts Magazine: Ula Wiznerowicz

My project 'Behind the Curtain' was published at the PHOTO/arts Magazine which is a compendium of photography and contemporary art topics. Created in 2006. Christopher H. Paquette is the editor and founder.

Behind the Curtain in Rybnik, Poland

My project 'Behind the Curtain' will be exhibited in DeKa Gallery in Rybnik, Poland from the 1-31 August 2012 

100 Curators 100 Days Project

I am very pleased that my work has been chosen by Matthias Harder, chief curator at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin as part of the project 100 Curators 100 Days run by Saatchi Online.


100 Curators 100 Days' is a major initiative that recognizes talented emerging artists from around the world. It was developed by Rebecca Wilson, Director of the Saatchi Gallery, London and is the inaugural exhibit under the helm of Saatchi Online's new CEO, Margo Spiritus. Each day for 100 days, work selected by curators from the world's most prestigious museums and galleries will be revealed.
Click here to view it

I'm thrilled to take part in The Nighttime Projection: Women in Photography as part of the Photoville. Join FotoVisura on June 30 at 8.30pm at Pier 3 Uplands Brooklyn Bridge Park, New - York!

Memories from Palmowo

In maximum 10 years the memory of the place I grew up will exist only on the pictures. My hometown and another 11 villages will be literally removed so the coal can be exposed. The mine is not giving up.. 
While I have been working on a coal mine project I have decided to document my home town by capturing simple, ordinary things rather optimistic and bringing good memories so I can keep it, before everything gets completely destroyed..

 

                            © Ula Wiznerowicz

Behind the Curtain in Suwalki, Poland

W suwalskiej galerii „Pacamera” pojawiły się fotografie autorstwa Uli Wiznerowicz, na których nawet szara rzeczywistość wydaje się barwna:   Niebywalesuwalki.pl

FotoVisura Grant Exhibition

I'm thrilled to take part in FotoVisura Exhibition at United Photo Industries, New York

The FotoVisura Grant Exhibition

 Sponsored by the Viso Lizardi Family

May 30th to June 17th, 2012 • United Photo Industries • 111 Front Street, Suite 204 • DUMBO Brooklyn NY 11201

Photo by Erin Trieb, 2011 FotoVisura Grant Winner

Curated by Adriana Teresa and Graham Letorney, the FotoVisura Grant Exhibition will be
presented at the new United Photo Industries Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

Opening Reception Thursday May 31 from 6pm - 9pm First Thursday Gallery Walk Thursday June 7 from 5pm - 9pm

A Group Show Featuring Erin Trieb, Thomas Michael Alleman, Brad Vest, Anastasia Taylor Lind/VII, Ula Wiznerowicz Dimitri Mellos, Laura El-Tantawy, Sebastian Liste, Annabel Clark, Marcia Michael, Ivor Prickett Wendy Marijnissen, Melissa Cacciola, Kai Loeffelbein, Emily Schiffer, Matt Eich/Luceo Justin Maxon, Elizabeth Herman, Pete Pin, and Amnon Gutman. United Photo Industries is a Brooklyn-born, art-presenting cooperative dedicated to identifying, harnessing, and occasionally conjuring unexpected exhibition opportunities. All in the name of fostering conversation, championing new directions in photography, and cultivating ties within an ever-expanding, globe-trotting community of photographers. www.unitedphotoindustries.com  www.fotovisurapavilion.com

Curatorial Statement

Curated by Adriana Teresa and Graham Letorney—The FotoVisura Grant Exhibition features a selection of thirty images by twenty members of the FotoVisura international photography community, who were recognized for their personal projects by a panel of renown editors and curators in either the 2010 or 2011 FotoVisura Grant competition.
FotoVisura is about community as much as photography. Together, we stand for respect, tolerance, awareness and compassion, as well as, the understanding that one can exercise his or her freedom of expression within a space that believes that we can co-exist and grow in the difference.
This exhibition is a testimony to the broad spectrum and high quality of personal projects produced by the members of the FotoVisura community. Using their own resources, each photographer has taken it upon themself to bring to light a story that they feel strongly about. Some expose and even risk their own life during the process, yet all have become a voice to many who do not have one.
FotoVisura Inc. is committed to supporting these photographers during the process.

Clare Uchima

Here are some pictures from the session with Clare in Dumfries, Scotland.

                                © Ula Wiznerowicz

'Between Homes' at PDPL

My project 'Between Homes' has been published by Polish Documentary Photography Links. Curated by Ewa Meissner of Napo Foundation and Napo Images agency in Poland. One of Ewa Meissner's and Napo Foundation's goals is to promote Polish documentary photography internationally. PDPL on weekly bases publishes links to new stories by leading Polish documentary photographers and photojournalists as well as aspiring fresh talents.

Clare part 2

Off to Scotland for a weekend with Clare. Photo session part two :)

Behind the Curtain in PAcamera Gallery, Suwalki, Poland

Getting ready for my next exhibition in Poland in June 2012. Here are some very interesting reviews of my project Behind the Curtain after my exhibition at London's Polish Cultural Centre (POSK) on November 24, 2011:

Given its typically secondary role, it's rare for narrative to make such a radical difference to how we read a piece of art. Narrative is a form of secondary payoff which means we don't pause to look at a mere pretty landscape. Beauty carries a price and in the case of the narratives of Ula Wiznerowicz, it is a very high price. Is it significant that the pictures were taken in Poland? They could have been taken anywhere, and therein lies their communicative power. The destructive power of addiction knows no limits and is immune to the wealth of nations.

There is a curtain and a world behind the curtain. The title Behind the Curtain brutally transports the viewer from an aesthetic experience to an existential one. It suggests that the images carry a double meaning. We are confronted with the first circle of (Dante's?) hell. Beautiful landscapes introduce a visual dissonance. Cruel nature, indifferent to human fate and the losing battle fought by the subjects (often absent from the images) against their own weakness. Nature doesn't judge or assess value. Intruding into this record of the external world we find still life images taken indoors - spaces seen through the eyes of an artist. These compositions, while made up of modest everyday objects, can be beautiful too. These modest items are bare living essentials. No one has arranged them or shifted them around. Their owners won't throw them away. They are placed where they are needed.

The lens records the fading colours, a well-used gas stove, a cat looking for a comfortable spot amidst clouds of cigarette smoke, perhaps some leftover food. Occasionally people make their presence felt in the images, people who are powerless in the grips of addiction. There are also the landscapes which they do not see. And there are the women who never lose hope.

Grzegorz Malkiewicz

"If this is an exhibition about alcoholism then I'm the queen of Sheba." So began an exchange I overheard between two newly-acquainted photographers on the steps of London's Polish Cultural Centre (POSK). "Go and look for yourself, I challenge you to find anything in there on the subject."

The photos presented by Ula Wiznerowicz on 25 November at the POSK Gallery showed no bottles, vomit-strewn carpets or the iconic elderly alcoholic struggling to mount a bicycle in the mud of a country lane. There was also an absence of images of enlarged livers, faces full of swollen teeth or photocopies of invoices for nights spent in the state drunk-tank.

I don't think, however, that such images are really worth looking at. And anyway, such artistic motifs are already being used by the UK Department of Health as health warnings on cigarette packets. All the paper used to convince us of the terrible effects of drinking alcohol could no doubt be used to wrap up the whole planet. It doesn't look like those publications have ever successfully helped anyone to kick the habit.

Is it compulsory for an exhibition to shock? At least once a week I'm shocked by the excesses of my drunken neighbours outside my window. It's no secret that my chosen form of stress relief is to sip a dark ale wittily entitled 'Bishop's Finger'.

The images presented by Ula Wiznerowicz are, instead, a window onto a distant world, nearly forgotten by the majority of emigrants. It is a cruel world, an empty void in which the only cure for our painful grey of existence is alcohol, a wretched world devoid of content. The artist has made this world more palatable with a subtle palette of colours which sometimes make it hard to tell if we're looking at a photograph or a painting.

I must admit I was surprised by the maturity of these images which seems at odds with the young age of the artist. I don't how old Jacek Kaczmarski was when he wrote the song Encore One More Time, but I was reminded of its words when I considered the subject of the exhibition.  Somehow these two modes of expression seemed to chime together. They revealed an image of reality seen through the eyes of a man who lived life under the pressure of terrifying loneliness. In between alcoholic trances he saw himself standing on the precipice of his unfulfilled dreams. Perhaps it was only when I connected the words of the song with the images that I was able to see clearly. I don't know if Ula Wiznerowicz also had so clear a vision of what she wanted to express or whether she only intuited the existence of a certain state of consciousness, a state that seems very distant from the young, pretty and ambitious Londoner.

Michal Sedzikowski

'Behind the Curtain' in Przekroj Magazine

My photo reportage "Behind the Curtain" was published in Przekroj (Cross-Section) the oldest Polish weekly newsmagazine. The magazine focuses on current social, political and cultural events (both Polish and International).

Clare

© Ula Wiznerowicz

© Ula Wiznerowicz

Green tea, music by Leszek Mozdzer and wacom tablet:) I'm working on some promo pictures for a lovely pianist, Clare.

Trip to Poland part 2

It was only a few days ago when I was cycling around the site of the mine in Poland. That place has changed a lot since I have been there last time. Boguszyczki and Ostrowo, villages that are part of Wierzbinek Commune located in Wielkopolska Region have almost disappeared from the map of Poland. I spoke to the people who stayed amongst nothing but big mountain of sand, so much dust and noise. They trusted me and shared their personal stories. It was incredible.. Lovely Labyrinth team quickly developed all my negatives. After whole day of scanning yesterday the images are waiting for me to make an edit. I can’t wait to listen to all the interviews I have recorded and start putting the story together.

On a bus

                          © Ula Wiznerowicz
I landed in Bydgoszcz. As usual, a friend of mine picked me up from the airport and drove back to her house. Time passed so fast that before I even realised, I was already seating on a bus, heading home. It was 7 a.m. in the morning. The road was almost empty and there was a silence on the bus as well, nobody was talking. I stole a glance at some passengers whose eyes were fixed upon a distant horizon. I decided to do the same and I stared at the well-known Polish landscapes. I saw those spindly birch trees and finally felt that I am getting close to my home. My heart started beating faster and I couldn't stop thinking about my project, people I am going to meet and stories I am about to listen to this time.

Trip to Poland

I'm getting ready for my trip home, doing some research and trying to find an easy explanation why all of my projects lead me to the same place, which is Poland. I came across an interesting essay by Rosamund Bartlett: “The Meaning of Motherland” applying to Simon Roberts body of work "Motherland". Bartlett talks about a sense of belonging to some place and love for the motherland. I think that is what inspires me to tell a story about my physical and mental attachment to my native landscapes. '…meditative landscapes – clusters of spindly birch trees under cloudy skies, village churches next to modest ponds, and houses surrounded by snow.' writes Bartlett and I automatically see this picture in my mind.

The project about Stripe Mine, hasn't got a title yet and it is something I have to figure it out :) In January 2010 The Tomislawice Strip Mine has started preparation to be ready for mining lignite for the beginning of 2011. The deposit is based on the southern and central parts of Wierzbinek Commune in Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) where I grew up. More soon...

                        © Ula Wiznerowicz