Agnieszka Kozłowska is a Polish artist and researcher whose practice combines performative engagement with remote landscapes and the radical understanding of photography as a mechanism for creating unique physical traces rather than reproducible images. She earned her PhD from Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom in 2014. Driven by a fascination with the moment of photographic exposure, when a tangible link is formed between the light-sensitive surface and the physical world, she continuously researches unconventional light-sensitive materials that allow her to make unique photographic artefacts directly in the camera, without the need for printing or post-production.
Carrying a self-constructed 10×8in. camera, she performs carefully planned solitary walks across uninhabited landscapes to make photographic exposures that are several hours long. Usually only one work can be made in a day, and only in very strong sunlight. Little artistic control is possible in the exposure process, which therefore remains free from subjective decisions about the visual qualities of its outcome. Because the techniques used are highly experimental, more often than not the resulting photograph appears less than perfect in terms of its image. Nonetheless, through its material presence, it is indexical to the event of the photographic exposure having taken place. Once the exposure is complete, the work can be neither altered nor reproduced. In a culture where photographic image can no longer be understood by default as true or real, Kozłowska’s practice can be considered in the light of documentary photography tradition of depicting a place as precise and truthful as possible.
Her works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions across Europe, among others in Kunsthaus Zug (Switzerland), Stadtgalerie Klagenfurt (Austria), Fotogalleriet, Oslo (Norway) and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (Germany). In 2016 the ‘Carved by Light’ project was selected in the Forecast mentoring programme in Berlin and developed with the guidance of photographer Bas Princen, with support from Arts Council England, Polish Institute in Berlin, and Culture.pl.
contact(at)agnieszkakozlowska.com
photo credit: Karin Reichhalter