_ Meetings and exhibitions of photographic books

25–26 November 2017

Arsenał Municipal Gallery

Stary Rynek 6

61-772 Poznań

http://www.arsenal.art.pl

The guests invited to hold the meetings and make a selection of the photo publications will include:

Sputnik Photos collective

meetings with Michał Łuczak, Rafał Milach and Ania Nałęcka-Milach on Saturday, 25.11

www.sputnikphotos.com

Sputnik Photos is an international collective set up in 2006, gathering documentary photographers from Central and Eastern Europe, interested in the present-day reality of the former Soviet Union territories and of the former satellite republics of the USSR. The members of the collective are prominent figures of documentary photography, winners of prestigious awards, and authors of a few dozen joint exhibitions held across the globe. The photography books are a unique medium of expression for Sputnik Photos. The books combine finely tuned narratives of photographers and writers, based on long-term field work with an uncompromising editorial execution and graphic design. Books by Sputnik Photos are an important contribution to contemporary European photography.

Sputnik Photos is composed of: Andrej Balco, Jan Brykczyński, Andrei Liankevich, Michał Łuczak, Rafał Milach, Adam Pańczuk, and Agnieszka Rayss. The collective is represented at the XPRINT Festival by Michał Łuczak and Rafał Milach. Apart from these photographers, a commentary on the work on publications will be provided by Ania Nałęcka-Milach, one of the seminal photo book designers in Poland, in charge of Sputnik Photos publications. A group show Lost Territories Wordbook prepared by Rafał Milach, held at PIX.HOUSE Gallery, will be a special show of the collective.

Michał Łuczak

meeting: Saturday 25.11, 12 noon

http://michal-luczak.com/

Born in 1983, a documentary photographer telling ordinary, subjective histories commenting on everyday reality, based on personal relations. He comes from Silesia and has strong ties with the region, where he has worked on the following series: Noviciate, Nikisz, Young Miners, and Brute – a portrait of the demolished main railway station in Katowice, shown in an art book with large-sized black-and-white photographs. He has moreover published Primer / Around the Place with a text by Krzysztof Siwczyk (Czytelnia Sztuki 2016) and with Filip Springer 11:41 (2016) – a reportage from present-day Armenia, made on the pretext of still visible ramifications of the 1988 earthquake. He has collaborated with projects reinterpreting archival photographs Stefania Gurdowa – Klisze przechowuje się [Stills Preserved] and Stefania Gurdowa – Czas niewinności [Time of Innocence].

Rafał Milach

meeting: Saturday 25.11 1:15 pm

http://rafalmilach.com/

Born in 1978, a photographer and author of photography books, with a degree in Graphic Design from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice and in Photography from ITF Opava, where he currently works, conducting classes in e.g. photography publications. He carries out personal projects based on photo documentaries in post-Soviet territories; in his works he comments on the social changes taking place in this part of the world. Co-founder of Sputnik Photos collective. He has published The Winners (GOST 2014), 7 Rooms (Kehrer 2011) Black Sea of Concrete (2013). In the Car with R (own publication 2012), Gentlemen’s First March (Kolekcja Wrzesińska 2016). His output has been supported by grants from the Ministry of Culture, European Cultural Foundation and Magnum Foundation. Recipient of awards at the World Press Photo and Picture of the Year, he has exhibited e.g. in C/O Berlin, Zachęta, MoCA in Shanghai; his works can be found in the collections of the Ujazdowski Castle, Kiyosato Museum, C/O Berlin, and ING Foundation of Polish Art.

Rimaldas Vikšraitis

meeting: Saturday 25.11, 2:30 pm

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/rimaldas-viksraitis-naked-grimaces-exposing-rural-lithuania

Born in 1954, a Lithuanian photographer renowned for his honest, close and scathing photographic documentation of everyday life in the Lithuanian countryside. For many years at work on a study of the reality of a stoned provincial community, he managed to strike a difficult balance between an honest portrait of his protagonists and a strong personal commentary. The aesthetics of his stories is equally straightforward. Vikšraitis’ works have since 2009 been displayed at e.g. the Arles Festival, where he won the prestigious Discovery Award, at the White Cube Gallery London, Photography Arts Center in Beijing, Kaunas Photography Gallery, at the Photo Espana Festival in Cuenca, at F photo gallery Cardiff, and at Galeria Piekary in Poznań.

Filip Springer

meeting: Saturday 25.11, 5 pm

filipspringer.com

Born in 1982, with a degree in Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology from Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań, after a few years of working for the press as a photographer, he made his debut as a writer with the book Miedzianka. Historia Znikania (Czarne, 2011). An author of reportages where he analyses Polish public space, architecture and their social background. He has

published Źle urodzone. Reportaże o architekturze PRL (Karakter, 2012); Zaczyn. O Zofii i Oskarze Hansenach (Karakter, 2012); Wanna z kolumnadą. Reportaże o polskiej przestrzeni (Czarne, 2013); 13 pięter (Czarne, 2015); Księga zachwytów (Agora, 2016); Miasto Archipelag. Polska mniejszych miast (Karakter, 2016). Nominated e.g. to the Gdynia Literary Award, Nike Literary Award, Ryszard Kapuściński Award. He cooperates with the Reportage Institute.

Ania Nałęcka-Milach

meeting: Saturday 25.11, 6:15 pm

http://nalecka.com/

Born in 1977, a book designer, founder of Tapir Book Design. Responsible for many major photo publications which have come out in Poland in recent years. Her books have repeatedly been awarded or nominated at the most prestigious world review (Paris Photo / Aperture Foundation Photobook Award Nominee, The New York Photo Festival, Bratislava Photomonth, Art Books Wanted International Award, Photographic Publication of the Year in Łódź). Apart from collective publications and those by individual photographers of Sputnik Photos, she designed art books of e.g. Mark Power, Mateusz Sarełło, Agnieszka and Maciek Nabrdalik, Amy Elkins, Yulia Krivich, Glenn Sloggett, and Jacek Fota.

Adam Lach

meeting: Sunday 26.11, 12:00 noon

http://www.lachadam.com/

www.napoimages.com

Born in 1983, a photographer involved in long-term documentary projects, where he is interested in intimate, personal descriptions of interpersonal relations. An author of books Stigma (2014, recipient of e.g. the Beata Pawlak Award of the Batory Foundation) and Neverland (2016). Co-founder of NAPO agency, one of Poland’s principal photo agencies in operation since 2008. Winner of awards at prestigious competitions of press photography (Picture of the Year, International Photography Awards). He has exhibited e.g. at the Polka Galerie HSBC in Paris, during the Prague Biennale, at the World Photojournalism Festival in Beijing, Photofestival in Łódź. Between 2010 and 2012 worked at the Journalism Institute of Warsaw University.

Maksymilian and Magdalena Rigamonti

meeting: Sunday 26.11, 1:15 pm

http://www.rigamonti.pl/

Maksymilian Rigamonti

Born in 1974, with a degree in Graphic Design from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, a photo-journalist. He has worked in Newsweek Polska, Wprost, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, and has documented the involvement of Polish troops in the war in Afghanistan; in 2013 published a book-summary of the series – Afganistan jest w nas [Afghanistan is within us]. Together with his wife he is a columnist of Dziennik’s Rigamonti razy 2. They both collaborate during the making of reportages and books and have jointly published Straty. Żołnierze z Afganistanu (2015) and many reportages published in the press.

Magdalena Rigamonti

A journalist, author of interviews, collaborates with Wprost, Newsweek, Polish Radio, now with Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. An author of books Bez znieczulenia. Jak powstaje człowiek, Straty. Żołnierze z Afganistanu and Bez strachu. Jak umiera człowiek. Winner of e.g. Dariusz Fikus Award, Barbara Łopieńska Award and Grand Press 2016 in the interview category.

Martin Parr

meeting: Sunday 26.11, 2:30 pm

www.martinparr.com/

www.magnumphotos.com

Born in 1952 in the UK, a member of the Magnum agency, author of documentary series canonical for contemporary photography, depicting e.g. the phenomenon of mass tourism (Small World), leisure time in his native UK (The Last Resort), the middle class (The Cost of Living), and consumerism (Common Sense). Editor of the Photobook History series, one of the major authorities in the area of photography books, curator and collector.

Gazeta / Magazyn

meeting: Sunday 26.11, 5 pm

Magazyn Gazety Wyborczej, prepared by the journalists and photo-journalists of the daily, was launched in 1993. Its layout was designed by the French graphic designer Dominique Roynette, who earlier worked for Liberation daily. One of the underlying assumptions of Magazyn was to publish ambitious texts and photographs, which would be treated on a par as equitable journalist forms. The selection of 20 issues of Magazyn made by Piotr Wójcik and Dominique Roynette references this history, a witness to the time and faith in photo-journalism as the author’s subjective perception of the surrounding world and the transformations of the end of the 20th century.

Magazyn Gazety Wyborczej is no doubt one of those Polish magazines which following 1989 addressed in the most ambitious manner photography as a tool for getting to know the world. We present it in the context of the photography books festival not only to celebrate a publication that does justice to photography, one unmatched today in the press section. We would like to reflect on the differences between the methods and standards characteristic of press photographs (of premium quality, like Magazyn), and how they develop for documentary photography, where the ultimate medium for making a statement is the book.

Piotr Wójcik

A photographer, documentary photographer, lecturer at the Camera Operating Faculty of the Łódź School of Film, Television and Theatre. Closely collaborates with Gazeta Wyborcza daily and the French news portal Mediapart, making documentary and news videos. An author of documentary photo and multimedia projects dedicated to the Roma community in Europe. Author of books Cyganie z obu stron Karpat, 2000 and Polskie Wolności 2014. As of 1989 photo-journalist of Gazeta Wyborcza, between 2000 and 2011 head of the daily’s photo section. http://www.picture-doc.org/o-nas/

Dominique Roynette

Born in 1948, a graduate of the Higher School of Fine Arts in Paris. Art director of the largest European newspapers: Libération, Le Monde and Gazeta Wyborcza. Exhibition curator, co-author of books. http://www.picture-doc.org/o-nas/

Michał Szlaga

meeting: Sunday 26.11, 6:15 pm

http://szlaga.blogspot.com/

Born in 1978, with a degree from the Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts. Recognised for his photography projects documenting Poland. These very personal works were initially published at a blog of observations of everyday reality (Reality, 2007; Prostytutki, 2010; Polska, 2016). He has made a monumental work about the Gdańsk Shipyard, developed consistently since 2000. Szlaga builds a photographic monograph of the place, where he combines stories about the post-industrial shipyard architecture, its social reality, history and single heroes. He is interested in the big picture; in collaboration with journalist Maks Cegielski, in Global Prosperity they jointly followed the history of the ships made in Gdańsk, which ultimately were scrapped in an Indian village of Alang. The photographs related to the shipyard were published in two art books – Paskudne Pocztówki 2007 – 2012 and Stocznia, 2015. His works can be found in the collections of the National Museum in Gdańsk, CSW Ujazdowski Castle, and Apollonia Gallery in Strasbourg. A recipient of multiple awards at competitions of Polish press photography for his works for the magazines he collaborates with (e.g. Newsweek, Przekrój, Viva!, Twój Styl).

_ Description of events

exhibition

Lost Territories Wordbook / Sputnik Photos

curator: Rafał Milach

launch: 24 November, 5 pm

exhibition open from 24 November until 8 December 2017

PIX.HOUSE Gallery

Głogowska 35a

60-711 Poznań

www.pix.house

Lost Territories Wordbook is one of multiple narratives completed within the Lost Territories project. The book attempts to define phenomena, events, processes and coming to terms with the memory of the Soviet Union, which for long decades exerted its impact on our reality, too.

Twenty-one authors: writers, journalists, political science experts, historians, artists, and curators created a personal atlas of post-Soviet associations. Additionally, each of them was inspired by selected photographs from the Lost Territories Archive. The authors differ in almost everything: origin, language, literary style, and temper. Each of them remembers the USSR slightly differently and has experienced it differently. The publication is no guidebook of the Soviet world, but addresses many important and pivotal issues of the region. This region is constantly being transformed, trying to define its position and come to grips with the memory of an empire which collapsed twenty-five years ago.

A supplementary material for the exhibition is a photo book Fruit Garden, a fruit of the Lost Territories project.

Lost Territories Wordbook / a 2016 Sputnik Photos publication, design Ania Nałęcka-Milach, texts: Edwin Bendyk, Andrzej Brzeziecki, Sebastian Cichocki, Jörg Colberg, Aleksandra Jarosiewicz, V.L. Kadoch Brandt, Daniel Kalder, Wojciech Kucharczyk, Jewhen Mahda, Małgorzata Nocuń, Wojciech Nowicki, Stanisław Patrijew, Maciej Pisuk, Andrzej Poczobut, Taras Prochaśko, Filip Springer, Krzysztof Środa, Ziemowit Szczerek, Andrzej Tobis, Sigurbjörg Þrastardóttir, Serhij Żadan, photos: Jan Brykczyński, Andrei Balco, Andrei Liankevich, Rafał Milach, Adam Pańczuk, Michał Łuczak, Agnieszka Rayss; print-run: 500 + 500 [EN, PL].

exhibition

BOOKI

exhibition prepared by the UAP Photography Department

SKALA Gallery, ul. Święty Marcin 49a, Poznań

launch: Friday, 24 November, 6 pm

debate: 2 December, 5 pm

exhibition open from 24 November until 2 December 2017

www.fotografia.uap.edu.pl

The Department of Photography of the University of Arts in Poznań organises an international review of photography books made by the students and graduates of art schools. The BOOKI exhibition at SKALA Gallery will present the most recent, selected publications made within the two last years by students and graduates of schools from England, Norway, Germany, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. The tens of publications based on photographs, selected by our partners, will include unique and often premiering art books, zins, notebooks, etc.

The books are chosen by:

Victoria Rowena Browne – Kunsthøgskolen, Oslo

Paula Roush – London South Bank University

Olja Triaška Stefanović – Vysoká škola výtvarných umení, Bratislava

Vladimír Birgus – Institut tvůrčí fotografie, Slezské univerzity v Opavě

Adrian Mott – London College of Communication

Linn Schröder – Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, Hamburg

Jarosław Klupś – University of Arts in Poznań

This year, UAP Photography Department set up a new publication specialty (Editorial Photography), in the Photography major. The exhibition at SKALA Gallery is an attempt to construct an international network of partner universities for the exchange of best practices, cooperation of students and teachers. The exhibition will be accompanied by workshops, a meeting at the Photography Department Library and a debate on the significance and function of paper-based publications and specialist training in editing photography publications.

exhibition

Making of

Weronika Krawczuk

Launch: Friday, 24 November, 7 pm

exhibition open on 25 and 26 November, between 1 pm – 7 pm

Ostrøv

Św. Marcin 25

61-804 Poznań

https://www.facebook.com/Ostrov.books/

Ostrøv is a reading room / studio dedicated to self-publishing, art and photo book. We collect, gather, show, and publish.

Making of – a project prepared within this year’s edition of the festival is the fruit of many months of collaboration between the Ostrøv reading room / studio and photographer Weronika Krawczuk. The exhibition will present the process of creating Krawczuk’s most recent photo publication, gathering the material from the period 2011–2015. The exhibition offers an insight into each of the successive stages of making a book, from editorial work, through design, prepress, and printing. It moreover highlights the factors that contribute to the final form of the publication.

Weronika Krawczuk – born in 1991 in Poznań. In 2015 obtained an MA at the University of Arts in Poznań, at the Faculty of Multimedia Communication, with a major in Photography. Laureate of Grand Prix, Fotopolis, 2014. Her work has been exhibited at Polish festivals of photography – 2016 Photography Month in Krakow and 2013 Fotofestiwal in Łódź. She has published e.g. in the US VICE magazine and in the British The Calvert Journal.

workshops

Photo. Narrative. Book – workshop of art book design

moderator: Honza Zamojski

25.11, Saturday, 9 am – 4 pm, no. of attendees: 7-10 people

UAP Photography Department

23 lutego 20, 61-742 Poznań

www.fotografia.uap.edu.pl

More and more books. More and more designers, photographers, artists, and publishers. Each month there are book fairs – from London, through Paris to Los Angeles. Competitions, hashtags, blogs, promotion, and distribution. More and more titles. And, paradoxically, a good publication, whose lifespan will be longer than a one-off browsing in the bookstore, is increasingly hard to find. What makes a book “good”? Where lies the success of meticulous editing, above-average graphic design and first of all – an intriguing idea? Can one think up a book on one lazy afternoon? Such questions will launch a one-day workshop led by Honza Zamojski, an artist, book designer / publisher and an academic at the University of Arts in Poznań and the School of Form. The prime objective of the workshop will be to demonstrate how relations between the idea, content and form may impact the quality and reception of the final product. At the same time, we would like to create an atmosphere conducive to a debate about photography, about book narrative, and first and foremost about the value and sense of the existence of the photo book in the present-day world, saturated with visual images.

Brunch Review

25 November 2017, between 9 am – 12 noon

Library and Archive of the UAP Photography Department

University of Arts in Poznań, ul. 23 lutego 20

fotografia@uap.edu.pl

The meeting in the library will be an occasion to present unique photography books, selected albums and COMO publications, a magazine of photography students and graduates. Over the morning coffee we will talk about the unique publications from the BAKF collection, about the running and editing of a photo magazine and independent publications.

open lecture

coordination: Bianka Rolando

26 November, 9 am – 12 noon

School of FormGłogowska 18

60-734 Poznań

MTP, Pavilion 1

www.sof.edu.pl

debate

Pictures can. How do documentary photographers think about change?

Maciej Frąckowiak, Prof. Rafał Drozdowski

24 November, between 3 pm – 5 pm

PIX.HOUSE Gallery

Głogowska 35a

60-711 Poznań

www.pix.house

Maciej Frąckowiak has conducted a few dozen sociological interviews with Polish artist who make use of photography. The conversations focused on the imagery, attitudes and practice of artistic interventions with the application of photographic images. We will talk about the key conclusions and results of this project.

debate

Book as a process. The making of the album I see you by Damian Chrobak?

Joanna Kinowska, Damian Chrobak, Adrian Wykrota

25 November, 11 am

Arsenał Municipal Gallery

Stary Rynek 6

61-772 Poznań

http://www.arsenal.art.pl

Photography is a process which needs time. When we publish a book, time seems even more paramount. What does work on an album look like? How to select the right pictures from thousands? What are the next steps? Damian Chrobak (photographs author), Joanna Kinowska (photographs editor) and Adrian Wykrota (publisher) will talk about the process of creating a new album, I see you, published by PIX.HOUSE.

video from the previous edition of XPRINT | Michał Szalast