Beata Długosz

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Lives and works in Kraków, Poland. She is a member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers. She teaches photography at the Faculty of Art at the Pedagogical University in Krakow. In 2010 she obtained her PhD in Photography at the Film School in Łódź (PWSTiTV). In 2005 she was awarded a fellowship by the Mayor of the City of Krakow for her achievements in photography. Her works are part of the collection of Kraków’s Museum of Photography (MUFO) and the MOCAK Library collection. In 2014-15, she worked as the coordinator of the Main Program of the Krakow Photomonth Festival (MFK). Her work centres on such phenomena as emanation of light, the passage of time, photochemical processes. She works, mainly in traditional black-and-white photography techniques, makes experiments in camera-less photography, as well as site-speccific art installations. In recent years, her works have become critical of the current reality.
Ester

The book Ester tells the story of how a Jewish woman named Ester, who became queen in the Persian Empire, saved her people from a pogrom. It is in her memory that the Purim holiday is celebrated.

The circle is a symbol of unity and the absolute, of perfection; time and infinity, timelessness and perpetual repetition of life.

Beata Długosz has prepared a project for the Kolín Synagogue, visually related to her previous works Eos (2007) and Iris (2008). She works with photograms, however photograms in her interpretation transcend the borders of simply placing objects on to photosensitive material, and are instead inventive work with light and a combination of techniques and random processes. In the dark room she, as Jan Bujnowski wrote of her work, continues the age-old battle between light and darkness. The process of the creation of the photograms is similar in style to performance art; the result is a unique and unrepeatable work dependent on space and time for its creation. As well as creative work in the dark room, Beata studies the reactions of individual objects to light, and their gradual transformation.

Her works exhibited in the synagogue, in the women’s gallery (where better to place an echo of the story of Ester), are also based on this principal. Circles from various reacting emulsions that change colour during the course of the exhibition are spread using a thin two metre rod on a thing layer of white fabric. The work will de facto be created only by light conditions at play inside the Synagogue, and additionally each will change differently, based on its interaction with its own space. It can be said that Beata links the retraction of process art to the critical debate about the search for artistic freedom of the 1960s. The process of the origin of the work becomes a work itself. Distinct from minimalism and postminimalism Beata Długosz restores content to her works, content that we become aware of in the unique space of the synagogue.

Helena Musilová
www.funkehokolin.com 


Festival of Photography Funke’s Kolín, 2009, fot. Jakub Pierzchała

 
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