WOJCIECH KAMERYS
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"HIDE AND SEEK"
“I remember a dream that took root in my childhood memories. A dream of a winding road among the coastal hills, winding along the rocky coast. I remember a speeding car and a silhouette, just outside the passenger window, oblivious to the speed at which the vehicle was moving, as if levitating just outside the door. I remember the sound of the door handle opening and the sight of the asphalt running between the wheels. This dream kept coming back to me over the years, becoming a kind of enigma. It wasn’t anything terrible, despite the seemingly dangerous situation. It intrigued me. I have often looked for references to this event in my childhood photographs, searching for any reference points, visual representations that could connote the remembered situation, to no avail. It became engraved in the layers of memories, becoming almost a relic of a child’s mind. The dream has not appeared for a long time. Even so, I remember it perfectly, as if I had just woken up. (...) I began to haunt the places once known to me, places that today do not evoke any memories, but that subconsciously act as a magnet. The captured slivers of reality became a new testimony, allowing to create a visual story anchored in the world of memories, suspended between the real and the unreal. I followed my intuition, creating secondary experiences of the past, which were often irrelevant elements, but for me, they were a stimulant for the lost layers of memory. After some time I started to add new, unknown ones, creating on their basis a new kind of archive, including them in the layers of my current memory, creating on their basis further splits of associations, conjugations, references. I documented hidden, veiled elements, which were a kind of catalyst for the subjective feeling of mystery. I was searching for signs that could be a potential focus of the dialogue between myself and the lost memory, and ultimately between the image and the viewer”.
 Hide and Seek is a search for hidden meanings, an exploration of the layers of lost memory. It is a map of points scattered around the world, representing suspended, unknown elements. It collects images of hidden, buried emotions. It plays associations with the viewer, connotes with the centre of memory. It provides a starting ground for drawing from within the image and from within the self, enabling the creation of one’s own world located outside the jurisdiction of the destructive element of time.
photographic book
10 copies
self-publishing via BRAVE BOY PUBLISH
1st edition, 108 pages
16,5cm x 22cm
photos: 135mm film, 120mm film
Poland
2022


EXHIBITIONS:
Art_Inkubator, ul. Tymienieckiego 3, Lodz
"FAR WAY HOME" (Daleka Droga do Domu) exhibition
30.06.2022-05.07.2022

AWARDS:
"PRIME TIME" The best MA diploma contest nominee

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"MURPHY"
“I cannot remember the last few days. Everything is blurred, indistinguishable. I remember my mother’s voice on the phone, a voice full of pain, some hundreds of kilometres away from me. Something has changed since then. Something in my head. Something like a filter, a barrier, a cloak that protects the shell from damage at the cost of internal destruction. I’ve been struggling with that ever since. (...) My grandfather died two years ago, two weeks after my wedding. I still visit him once a week, exchange a handshake with the marble tombstone, sit on the bench and talk. I remember the first time, the initial uncertainty and a certain dose of awkwardness changing into a familiar feeling of safety and trust. Sometimes I came here to gather my thoughts, sometimes just to smoke a cigarette, and sometimes to fall into silence. Just behind the gravestone, there is a tree. Its rustle became the silence’s filler, an indistinguishable answer. Soothing and calming. Since then, I have changed my habits, my approach. I stopped demanding, expecting anything. This has helped. But sometimes I still disappear, run away with my thoughts, trying to bury, hide what is uncomfortable. To hide from strangers, from loved ones.” 
"Murphy" is a short film, a kind of diary documenting the process of getting used to the unknown. It is a portal to events from the past, rooted in the present; shows the connections and dependencies between what was and what is to come; digs up elements of memory hidden for various reasons, often due to emotional burden. Finally, it fights against the inevitability of events, opposes the destructive element of time.
short story video, 15min 45sec
2022 


EXHIBITIONS:
Art_Inkubator, ul. Tymienieckiego 3, Lodz
"FAR WAY HOME" (Daleka Droga do Domu) exhibition
30.06.2022-05.07.2022

AWARDS:
- "PRIME TIME" The best MA diploma contest nominee
- Committee distinction, 9th competition of the Best Diplomas in Media Art, Biennale WRO 2023.
-Quarter finalist, Student World Impact Film Festival
-Honorable mention, Apertura Institute x TAB-LAB darkroom screening
-Official selection, Festival del Cinema di Cefalù

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"TOTEM"
A totem is a collection of particles that form a unity. It's a visual interpretation of meaning and the essence of the sign as a three-fold symbol of communication. It deals with dependencies and correlations between the object, the representative and the interpreter. It is a kind of vertical axis of the universe, acting on the local community in understanding and comprehending global phenomena. Referring to the idea of ​​axis mundi, we can understand this area as the center, center, and stable element of the world for a given community. This element acts transcendently on the time aspect, allowing you to draw on the past and influence the future. It allows you to understand what was, what is and what will be. It designates a skimmed space, separated from chaos and ordered, especially in the aspect of the sacred-profane. The project is an attempt to observe the phenomena that shape a given cultural pattern, the way of interpersonal communication. It is an attempt to analyze language based on signs and shapes, on what is visible and invisible. Referring to the project New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, the apparent stylistic anonymity used in conjunction with the Pierce sign theory allows to create a reality unreal.
photo series, 16 photos, 135mm, silver photography
Poland
2021

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"DUST" (KURZ)
Driving the route connecting the province of Bergamo with the Lazio region, it was impossible not to notice dozens of houses falling into disrepair, deserted, frightening with dilapidated facades but still undeniably beautiful. They emanated a hidden bit of history, locked behind wooden doors with rusty fittings. It was not easy to get rid of the feeling of oblivion, a certain mystery bustling about abandoned farms scattered over tens of kilometers in inland Italy.
Towards evening, the outline of the town of Agna, shrouded in the last rays of the setting sun, looms over the road that winds along the Adige River. The relatively close proximity of Padua and the Venetian lagoon and the economic development of these cities, based mainly on tourism and services, resulted in a brutal development death of Agna, and in the context of the entire state, Italian suburbia. A lonely and unnecessary death, tearing the classic Italian family theme in half.
The very palpable topos vanitas seemed to have full power over the region. He acted as the biological clock of a society that decided to stay and last. Persist, but in a great number of cases, not survive, slowly decaying. This was due to the distinct aging processes of the Italian society, the decline in the number of births, and the migration of young people to academic and tourist cities, guaranteeing a chance for development and prosperity. Cities promising a vision of a bright future, casting long shadows on the suburbia, creating old settlements left in a kind of suspension between wider social utility and uselessness.
photo series, 20 photos, 135mm silver photography
Italy
2021


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"TAMING THE FEAR PIECE"
Taming the fear piece is a visual loop, mesmerizing, evoking a sense of anxiety. The essence is getting to know the unknown, tame fear and tame matter.
135mm film lomokino camera, video, 2min 29sec
2021


EXHIBITIONS:
MS1, ul. Gdańska 43, Lodz
"NIEZAUWAŻALNE DLA OKA" exhibition
https://niezauwazalne-dla-oka.msl.org.pl

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"RECONSTRUCTION"
The project concerns a former noble manor, once located on the road between the city of Lutomiersk and Konstantynow Lodzki. A manor house that existed for hundreds of years and disappeared from the map of the region within three months. It was dismantled, stolen, and demolished by local peasants, building on its ruins, remains, material obtained from its walls, its huts and farms. The remains of the mansion do not really exist, in the literal sense. However, this manor house lives in dozens of houses and buildings, in the form of bricks, roof tiles, construction elements, decorations, trusses, nails and door handles.
135mm photos, digital scan, video, 4min 20sec
Lutomiersk, Poland
2021


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"IT"
"It" is an attempt to tame the unknown. The essence is the fact of the process of understanding new, potentially dangerous in essence. It also shows the process of taming, the attachment aspect, stats and, finally, longings.
video, 135mm film lomokino camera, 2min 44sec
2021


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"TRANSITION"
sound-collage, field-recording, video, 3min 7sec
2021


EXHIBITIONS:
GALERIA ASP, ul. Piotrkowska 86, Lodz
FOTOFESTIWAL 2021 main program
"TRUDNA MIŁOŚĆ", 10.06.2021

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"BASTION"
I moved to polesie in September 2020. After spending several years in an iron bastion controlled by supporters of the Workers' Sports Association, I did not think that I would ever live in an area belonging to ultras under the white-red-white flag. Not because of club preferences but because of fear for life, car or wallet.
One day after moving, I was talking to a friend about this neighborhood. About its history, myths, ways of surviving, or, as he called it, the "Polesie Decalogue", some kind of rules aimed at introducing the unconscious wanderer to areas full of tension. Then he told me a story from years ago, about a bar on Więckowskiego Street, near the intersection with Żeligowskiego Street. A story about settlements between people related to the Lodz "octopus", about public executions, and murders at high noon. As if this area was outlawed, inviolable. The fact of these events was confirmed in the press archives, I found new details, connections, circumstantial evidence left by potential perpetrators, caught by journalists and described in the newspaper "Expres Ilustrowany".
Initially, polesie, perceived by me as a small creature, became a kind of organism that developed in itself behavior patterns not covered by the city's jurisdiction, and in some way stood above the law.
I started to create a topology of potential crime scenes, possible clues, evidence, and escape routes. Despite the passage of several, a dozen, or sometimes several dozen years after some events, some elements still formed a coherent whole, allowing for a quite shapely picture of past, unsolved, swept under the rug.
photo series, 135mm, 24 photos
Polesie, Lodz, Poland
2021

EXHIBITIONS:
ART_INKUBATOR "MAP: TERITORY"
FOTOFESTIWAL 2021, main program
14.06.2021-28.06.2021

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PHOTOBOOK "THE BRIDGE" (MOST)
The gridge is a journal, a collection of visual representations, an attempt to recreate memories. Includes scraps of memory, through forgotten by unreliable human mind, taken on the photosensitive material. They are proof of the existence of moments in the past, often flimsy, unimportant, but for some reason registered, immortalized, preserved.
I have been living in Lodz for nearly ten years, I moved here after graduating from high school, starting my first year of studies at the University of Lodz. During this time, many seemingly insignificant photographs were created, which, deprived of context, say little, but constitute an important part of me. The recorded imapges do not refer to specific events, they initiate a dialogue, recalling scraps of memory in the form of fragments of events, snapshots of images, blurred, jagged. As a result, I question the truth of these events. Despite the fact that it happened.
photographic book
unique copy
self-publishing
1st edition, 72 pages
16,5cm x 22cm
photos: 135mm film,
Poland
2021


EXHIBITIONS:
GALERIA ASP, ul. Piotrkowska 86, Lodz
FOTOFESTIWAL 2021 main program
"TRUDNA MIŁOŚĆ", 10.06.2021

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PHOTOBOOK "WAR" (WOJNA)
I've been searching family archives for two months. I come to my family home every few days. The archive was created by my father for nearly thirty years. Thirty years of memories hidden in albums. Later, the children appeared.  Years later, I've found a photograph of my mother from the eighties running down a crowded street to a botany class. I've found a photo of my dad in his first car that have burst into flames in the center of Poznan during a radiator failure. There is no new album created since this time, no one knows why, most likely due to lack of time.
I was born and raised in Konstantynow Lodzki. 10'000 populated city, dominated by Orlik sport centers, chuches and liquor stores. I have lived here for eighteen years, never felt at home here. It is nearly ten years since I moved, and nothing has changed. I started to archiving albums. Fighting with oblivion, fighting with tendency to deny memories. Some photos are kind of reflection, a mirror of visual representations, a bridge between me and my father, leading a subconscious dialogue. Other are fighting with each other.
photographic book
unique copy
self-publishing
1st edition, 84 pages
16,5cm x 22cm
photos: 135mm film, 120mm film, digital scanned darkroom prints
Poland
2021


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"WAR" (WOJNA)
It is a kind of documentation of the process of diving into family archives, working with them, trying to save memories that for some reason with time are getting blurred.
video, 3min 45sec
Lodz, Poland
2021


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"HOW TO MAKE A FRIEND WITH NO SOCIAL SKILLS *FOR DUMMIES"
video, 2min 20sec
Lodz, Poland
2021


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"RETURNS"
The life of the Seto people goes on slowly. They live far from civilization, surrounded by forests and lakes. The rush of the modern world is not known to them or they have forgotten about it long time ago. Years later, more residents return home. They often led a prosperous life among the Estonian cultural, business and political elite. However, is it possible to live away from your own paternity, the land of your ancestors? Is it possible to live with the feeling of abandoning your own nation?
It is difficult to define what could be the main element influencing a cultural memory. It is rather a set of behaviors used by parents, guardians, towards children. A certain mysticality of their traditions, beliefs, celebrations of days significant for the community, leaves a mark on Seto. An important element of their identity is the land of their ancestors, which somehow influences them. Seto’s tradition and culture, cultivated by the community, is rooted deeply in an archaic tribal tradition.
classic silver photography, medium format photography
Estonia
2020

EXHIBITIONS:
GALERIA OGRODOWA 8, ul. Ogrodowa 8, Lodz
Fotofestiwal 2021, main program
03.10.2020-18.10.2020
GALERIA ASP, ul. Piotrkowska 68, Lodz
PRIME STAGE 2020 exhibition
01.03.2021-25.03.2021
MIEJSKA GALERIA SZTUKI, ul. Sienkiewicza 44, Lodz
Strzemiński Contest exhibition
13.04.2021-25.04.2021

AWARDS:
PRIME STAGE 2020, the best bachelor's diplomas Award
official distinction
Wojciech Kamerys
38.  Władysław Strzemiński Competition - Fine Arts 2021
Grand Prix
Wojciech Kamerys

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PHOTOBOOK "STATES OF SUSPENSION"
States of suspension is a visual representation of the passing process. It is a record of a moment, unique and ethereal, taking place at a specific fraction of time. it is a story about suspension between. Between being useful and being useless. Between order and chaos. The project desribes the states of the unit, area, place. It shows moments of breath, calm before the storm. Following the words of Susan Sontag, who says that photography realizes surrealists desire for an uncompromisingly egalitarian attitude towards the object of creativity, we are looking for real-world looks, we are looking for presentations of the current state of affairs.
This work refers to the homo viator, classic topos of the man on the road, travel. It is a record of simplicity in bizarre situations. The project refers to the philosophy of Koan, presenting paradoxical visualisation of the answer to the question that was not required, or its absence was desirable. When we are naively looking for an answer when asking the question what is the sound of one hand clapping?, it is not the answer itself that is the desired effect, but the fact of considering it. 
The project aims to give a moment of consideration. The titular states of suspension is a moment of reflection, moment of a break. Sometimes, this moment, determines the author to take a photo, and sometimes it's the author who captures the moment of suspension, depicted on a light-sensitive material.
photographic book
number of copies: 25
self-publishing
1st edition, 48 pages
16,5cm x 22cm
photos: 135mm film, 120mm film
Kazakhstan, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Tithuania, Italy, Ukraine, Poland
2019-2020


EXHIBITIONS:
GALERIA ASP, ul. Piotrkowska 68, Lodz
PRIME STAGE 2020 exhibition
01.03.2021-25.03.2021
MIEJSKA GALERIA SZTUKI, ul. Sienkiewicza 44, Lodz
Strzemiński Contest exhibition
13.04.2021-25.04.2021

AWARDS:
PRIME STAGE 2020, the best bachelor's diplomas Award
official distinction
Wojciech Kamerys
38.  Władysław Strzemiński Competition - Fine Arts 2021
Grand Prix
Wojciech Kamerys

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"1984"
A short story video, a visual comment of the "1984" book by George Orwell. The loneliness of the individual in a natural space is a contrast to the tales about disappointment with the development of society, about the past and the future. 
short story video, 2min 52sec
Lodz, Poland
2020


EXHIBITIONS:
37.  Władysław Strzemiński Competition - Fine Arts 2020

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"LITTLE PRINCE"
"Little Prince" is a story that correlate dreams and desires of a child, with a tough reality of the "adult world". The work is affected by the aspect of emotional dysfunction among the society.
short story video, 1min 43sec
Lodz, Poland
2020


EXHIBITIONS:
37.  Władysław Strzemiński Competition - Fine Arts 2020

AWARDS:
37.  Władysław Strzemiński Competition - Fine Arts 2020
sponsorship award
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"NO MAN'S LAND"
No man’s land is the area between the positions of the parties of the conflict, it is uncontrolled, it is ​​potential confrontation, the area seemingly devoid of property, space for appropriation, therefore full of potential tensions, seemingly amorphous transition area. Few are going there and even less comes back. Those who have succeeded are bringing stories about what they experienced by crossing various boundaries. The no man’s land in the era of post-internet, in the era of hybrid, invisible wars, can lurk everywhere. Two young artists, students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, found it in Kazakhstan and Israel. Photographers have traveled hundreds of miles around these two countries. As a result, cycles of black and white views ready for appropriation were created. Their works are also an objective record and a personal interpretation of fragments of reality. They draw the viewer into the space of emptiness and loneliness, introduce us to an unknown, menacing and strange world, waiting for the discoverers of his potential meanings.
classic silver photography, 135mm
Kazakhstan
2019

EXHIBITIONS:
GALERIA ASP, ul. Piotrkowska 68, Lodz
07.06.2019-20.06.2021
ARTSTEPS online exhibition
08.06.2020-14.06.2020
co-financed by the Kultugranty 2.0 program
powered by Łódzkie Centrum Wydarzeń
FUTURES TALENTS slideshow
Muzeum Książki Artystycznej, Lodz
08.08.2020
FESTIVAL MANIFESTO slideshow
Toulouse, France
20.09.2020

AWARDS:
FUTURES PHOTOGRAPHY, TALENTS 2020
Amsterdam, Netherlands
15.06.2020

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PHOTOBOOK "NO MAN'S LAND"
Collective documentary project made with Wojciech Kamerys.
number of copies: 100
publisher: Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz
ISBN 978-83-66037-34-2
1st edition
112 pages
16,5cm x 22cm
2019


PREMIERE:
GALERIA ASP, ul. Piotrkowska 68, Lodz
07.06.2019-20.06.2021

PHOTOBOOK PRESENTATIONS:
Fotofestiwal 2019, Polish Paradise 2020 (Riga Photomonth, Nida. International Symposium of Photography, Festival ManifestO, 18th Photo Confluence of Toulouse, Kaunas Art Book Fairs), Fotofestiwal 2020, TIFF Festival, Krakow Photomonth

AWARDS:
FUTURES PHOTOGRAPHY, TALENTS 2020
Amsterdam, Netherlands
15.06.2020
FOTOFESTIWAL 2021 - Photobook contest of the Year (finalist)
10.06.2021

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"WHAT IS THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING"
Sometimes they wave one hand through the air, listening for the answer. Actually, the waving of one hand is one answer to the question.
photographic zine, 48 pages, matte 230g paper
self-publishing, a unique copy
Lodz, Poland
2019

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"TIME IS THE ENEMY"
Short film, representing created, designed world, located out of place and out of time.
video, 4min 14sec
Lodz, Poland
2019


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"DO NOT GO GENTLE"
Short story video showing the state of emotional suspension, some kind of paralysis caused by medical diagnosis. Audio has been recorded during a lecture about the effects during a treatment for multiple sclerosis.
short story video, 2min 8sec
Lodz, Poland
2019


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"SYMBIOSIS"
Photographic series struggling with the issue of connection between nature and human-made objects, affecting each other, fighting for a priority.
digital photography, 6 prints, matte 230g paper
installation: 1,2m x 2,4m wall (wood, fabric)
Lodz, Poland
2018

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"AL FATIHA" (THE OPENING)
Documentary video of the trip between Astana district and Almaty district. The sound is a recording of a first Sura from morning prayers of Islam.
video, 2min 50sec
Karaganda, Kazachstan
2018


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"PROCESS OF LIGHT MATERIALIZATION"
Short film, an impression about the creative power of light.
video, 2min 50sec
Lodz, Poland
2018


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