7th edition of the Festival of Photography
„W Ramach Sopotu”
3-19 September 2021

Discomfort

This year’s motto links the projects of the principal part of our exhibitions held during the 7th edition of the festival.

The subject was inspired by a recent project of photographer Sebastian Rogowski under this very title; we have the honour to show it for the first time in exhibition format. A program of artistic residencies is a characteristic element of the Festival of Photography “W ramach Sopotu”. This year we have offered residencies to three artists employing the medium of photography: Filip Ćwik, Weronika Gęsicka and Elis Hoffman. Without any predetermined topic and independently of one another, in their works they addressed the subject of contemporary concerns, which have become a fundamental element of our everyday life in social, cultural and personal terms.

Observation and reflection on last year’s events have inspired many of us to re-evaluate our approach to reality, to change our standpoint and often our outlook on the world. This provided an impetus and starting point for the three photographers’ reflections we have integrated under one telling banner. Discomfort. Residents’ Exhibition, similarly to the aforementioned solo exhibition of Sebastian Rogowski, as well as the presentation of projects by Martina Hoogland Ivanow, provides a commentary on the extremely vulnerable and volatile interpersonal relations of today, difficulties in forming a unified and stable concept of oneself and view on reality, as well as an overwhelming sense of fear and doubt concerning the essence of one’s personal operation in the world and the problem of autonomy. Paradoxically, despite our instinctive attempts to avoid it, the sensation of increasingly intense discomfort may be the only catalyst and impetus for change, for an evolution of thinking about reality, for unlocking the need to think creatively about the future.

This year’s festival will feature other interesting exhibitions, including a group exhibition of international artists, Violeta Bubelyte, Błażej Pindor, Diana Tamane, and Artur Żmijewski. Titled Flower Smugglers, it is curated by Adam Mazur. Another one will be an exhibition following-up on a workshop for students of the Film School in Łódź / PWSFTviT led by Prof. Janusz Tylman and Hubert Humka as well as a collective show of the most interesting photography projects of students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.

RESIDENTS

Weronika Gęsicka

B. 1984 in Włocławek. A visual artist. She works mainly in the medium of photography, but also makes objects and installations. Her projects deal with topics related to memory, its patterns and related scientific and pseudo-scientific theories. She is moreover interested in cultural phenomena that impact contemporary reality and which provide opportunities to manipulate it. She often works with archival materials, including photographs she comes across online, but also uses photo banks as well as police and press archives. She graduated from the Faculty of Graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Photography in Warsaw.
Laureate of e.g. Paszport Polityki for 2019 in the Visual Arts category, EMOP Arendt Award (2019), Foam Talent (2017), Spotlight Award (2017, Belfast Photo Festival), and LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards (2016). Finalist of the Prix HSBC pour la Photographie (2017) and the Prix Levallois (2016). Scholarship holder of Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage. Her work can be found e.g. in the collections of: Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation (Germany), Dom Museum (Vienna) and MuFo Museum of Photography (Krakow).

Filip Ćwik

B. 1973. Studied Cultural Sciences at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań. Construction technician. In his work he combines the media of photography, collage and painting. He often transgresses the genre of a document, combining and borrowing commonly known images, offering them a new dimension and meaning. Author of five photographic exhibitions and two collages. Occasionally a curator and editor of art books. He runs his own portrait studio Studio810 and his own art studio in Warsaw's Saska Kępa district.

Elis Hoffman

B. 1979, lives and works in Stockholm. Studied photography at the Nordic School of Photography and visual communication at the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. He has participated in many international collective shows, e.g. at festivals such as PHOS Art in Matane, Recontres Photographiques in Montpellier, Norderlicht in Groningen. His projects have been presented as solo exhibitions. e.g. in the VU Gallery in Quebec, the Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki and the Kehrer Gallery in Berlin. An author of two photography books that have been awarded by the Jury of the Rencontres photographiques de Montpellier, for the series Tonight and TT:s Stora Fotopris, considered Sweden's most important photography award, for the project Fading. The book Fading was published by Kehrer Verlag and premiered at Paris Photo.

SEPTEMBER 2

6 pm – 9 pm | Sopot School of Photography

A workshop with Filip Ćwik

6 pm | Pomarańczowa Plaża / Orange Beach

A meeting with Elżbieta Kinowska moderated by Angelik Swoboda – premiere of the Sopot Beach album

7 pm | Dwie Zmiany / Two Shifts

A meeting with participants of a photo workshop in Sopot, students of the Film School in Łódź

SEPTEMBER 3

7 pm | PGS

Opening night of exhibitions

Main exhibition: Filip Ćwik, Elis Hoffman, Weronika Gęsicka, curator Maja Kaszkur

O wiele za blisko / Far Too Close – Martina Hoogland Ivanow

Bursztynek / Piece of Amber – an exhibition of following a photo workshop of students of the Film School in Łódź, Estella Dandyk, Kacper Godlewski, Karolina Golis, Maria Łukaszewska, Filip Preis, Aleksandra Szajnecka, Karolina Wojtas, art supervisors Hubert Humka and Janusz Tylman

An exhibition of the Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts, supervision Małgorzata Popinigis

An exhibition at Cosma Café – 120 portraits for 120 years of Sopot, Krzysztof Salwarowski

8 pm | Goyki 3 Art Inkubator

Launch of FLOWER SMUGGLERS – Violeta Bubelyte, Błażej Pindor, Diana Tamane, Artur Żmijewski, curator Adam Mazur

9 pm | KIT

Launch of Dyskomfort / Discomfort – Sebastian Rogowski, curator Maja Kaszkur

9:30 pm | Dwie Zmiany / Two Shifts

Launch of an exhibition of the Sopot School of Photography, curator Paweł Klein

SEPTEMBER 4

12 noon – 3 pm | SSF WFH

A workshop with Weronika Gęsicka

1 pm | Sopoteka

Launch of a photobook exhibition. Book signing by Elis Hoffman, Martina Hoogland Ivanow, Sebastian Rogowski, and Hubert Humka

2:30 pm | Cosma Café at PGS

A meeting with Beata Cegielska, moderator Adam Mazur

4 pm | Cosma Café at PGS

A meeting with residents (Weronika Gęsicka and Filip Ćwik), moderators Maja Kaszkur and Adam Mazur

FESTIVAL AGENDA

@wramachsopotu