Joanna Borowiec

Joanna Borowiec

Location: Poland

Joanna Borowiec,
a graduate of the European Academy of Photography in Warsaw, diploma thesis in the Creative and Expressive Photography Workshop.

Member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF).
Enthusiast of medium- and large-format analogue photography. Uses historic photographic processes like ambrotype - wet collodion technique, cyanotype.

The main topic of her photos is humanistic photography, human. She has participated in individual and collective exhibitions at home and abroad, i.a. in Poland, Germany, Spain, Singapore, Canada, USA.

Her works made with wet collodion technique were appreciated on the Singapore International Photography Festival, the 'Glass Faces' project was presented in the National Museum of Singapore Stamford Gallery (2014),
her pin-hole photographs were presented on the International Pinhole Festival in Germany, the 'No Time' series was shown in the Iserlohn Museum (2010).
Winner of the Black & White Awards USA photography competition - first place in category People (2013).
Prize-winner of the Silver Medal Awards 2014 San Francisco International for work named 'Double' (2014).
Second and third place winner in the prestigious International Photography Awards (2011)
competition for 'Friends' work and 'Insomnia' series.
Her photographs were awarded the second place in the Historic Garden competition and presented in the Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów (2012).
Prize-winner of the 'Child' International Artistic Photography Biennale in 2012.
She was also awarded the third place in Photographer of the Year category of the Black& White Spider Awards (2013) competition.
Prize-winner of the Portfolio 2015 Black + White Photography UK,
the Portfolio 2013 Black & White for Collectors Of Fine Photography Canada,
the Portfolio 2012 Shot Magazine USA.
Her works and interviews with her were published in many magazines, i.a. the Black+ White Photography UK (the cover), the Shot Magazine USA, the Black and White Magazine Canada and in national magazines.

Her photographs can be found in public and private collections at home and abroad, i.a. in Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, USA.

www.joannaborowiec.com


Portfolio:

Unfinished Dreams

Dreams unfinished

My dreams are sometimes like butterflies – whirling, delicate, suddenly arriving in swarms and vanishing abruptly before I manage to inspect them closely. Sometimes dreams teeming in my head resemble moths flying around a light bulb. They multiply as the night approaches and cannot be chased away. They are not as beautiful and captivating as colourful butterflies, but persistent and restless like confused souls. They make me anxious. They are a link between the world of the living and the world of the dead. They appear and vanish out of a sudden. And although I do not always find them lucid or scary, I feel they are important to me.

Works depict dreams, motifs, shards of memories which probably appear in everyone’s dreams. Dreams – eternal companions of human life – encourage us to analyse our own experiences and understand our fate. They enable us to bring to surface deeply hidden secrets and go beyond the earthly matters.

These records are born out of imagination and perishable ephemeral memory. They are not meant to be unambiguous; they should leave the door open for free interpretation and free reading to enable everyone to supplement them with their own story.

Joanna Borowiec

Glass Faces, wet plate collodion

The ambrotype is a positive image created on a sheet of glass using the 19th century wet collodion process. It is now gaining huge popularity as an alternative to the modern digital photography. Its biggest difference is the one-of-its-kind and retouch-free nature of every image and its ambience. It is practically impossible to replicate an identical image or even a collodion print. Each and every plate requires individual coating, sensitisation and exposure and needs to be developed within the span of several minutes...