Joya: AiR / Matka Collective / POL
photo Simon Beckmann
Joya: AiR / Matka Collective / Poland
“We are a group of visual artists, mainly working with photography, researchers, visual educators, and cultural animators. We believe that collective work allows us to expand our artistic and research interests and to disrupt each other from the well-worn paths of our individual actions in the field of art. Our paths of action have intersected multiple times, in various projects – both artistic work and festivals and exhibitions organized by individual members of the collective. We first got to work together as a trio at Joya arte + ecología / AiR. For two weeks, we worked on the “Ephemeral Stream” project. Its premise was returning to the complexity of the relationship between humans & space. The result of our work will be a self-published book.
“Ephemeral Stream” is a complex, multi-step research-visual narrative conducted in collaboration with and within the local space. It consists of research work, spatial activities, and the creation of an artistic anti-guidebook/guide/atlas of actions with and for the land”.
left to right:
Katarzyna Zolich, PhD (1983)
Visual researcher, photographer and educator. Graduated from the Academy of Photography (Krakow, 2014) and Cultural Studies at Jagiellonian University (2009). Awarded scholarships from Young Artists Cooperative (2013), Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2014 and 2019) in order to finish a photobook 'The Catalogue on Invisible Places' and create 'Male naklady', also a scholarschip from President of the city of Bielsko-Biala (2015) and Instytut im. W.Felczaka (2020). In 2017 she has participated in the Residence programme at Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives in Budapest (Hungary) and gained a scholarship at the UGR in Granada (Spain). Chosen to Debuts 2014 - a bookgathering 36 most talented, young polish photographers. Published her first photobook Vivir en Valparaiso with Ciengramos (2018, Granada, Spain).
Co-author of the children's book: Oh Buu - on the Trail of Feelings.She exhibited her works in Poland and abroad. She is a part of Paper Beats Rock Foundation which is a collective of educators in the field of Zine culture. Interested in people, power and symbolic violence. Zine and photobooks enthusiast.
Founder of @Malenaklady/ Small editions - an on-line library of self- publishing featuring books from Poland and Hungary. Co-curator of Paperlust Photobook Fest (2019, Krakow), and Coexistence workshops (2020, Bielsko-Biala), Art-bibuła. Zines Festival (2021) and No Borders Exhibition Award (2021 and 2024).
Anka Sielska (b. 1978 in Katowice, Poland) –
Photographer, animator of culture (president of Culture of Image Foundation). Graduate of the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava (Czech Republic) and Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice (Poland), where she conducts classes in narration in photography and photo books edition. She works with private stories, amateur photographs and mementos from photo shops. Anka Sielska also deals with artistic photography and co-implements multimedia projects. She holds scholarships of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Marshal of Silesian Voivodeship.
Barbara Kubska
As a visual artist, I work mainly with the medium of photography. I am interested in multithreading stories, archives and collections. Using photography, I study their contexts and meanings. I employ the retrospective, hierarchization, seek new dependencies and connections. With the Culture of Image Foundation, I am involved in its social and popularising cultural activity. I am employed as an assistant of the Photography Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Katowice. My works have been presented at solo exhibitions: “Sploty. Fotografie polskich strojów ludowych” (Weaves. Polish Folk Costumes) in Photographs at the Tychy City Museum, “Zabijam czas, nimczas zabije mnie” (I’m Killing Time Before It Kills Me) at the gallery of the Culture of Image Foundation in Katowice and the “Nowe Miejsce” gallery in Warsaw. I have participated in numerous group exhibitions, including: “Serce Wyspy” (The Heart of the Island) at the BWA Gallery of Contemporary Art in Olsztyn and “Milczenie Dźwięków”(The Silence of the Sounds) at the Wrocław Contemporary Museum. My works were presented at the Joanna Helander exhibition “Baby patrzą” (Ladies Looking) during the 2019 Photo Month in Kraków.
