invited guest: Agnieszka Sym

Agnieszka Sym, born in Warsaw, living and taking pictures there: in urban space, on the streets, without one-dimensional theme, with subjects that were interesting for her. She is an amateur (remember: from French – lover of) photographer, doesn’t have to make assignments, doesn’t take photos for anyone else then herself, can go her own way. Some of us find on that photos moments, which otherwise will be unnoticed, even if those moments are funny, irrational or from other point of view – just interesting and worth to be photographed.

invited by Marcin Górski

Gliwice House of Photography: Sylwia Biernacka talks of Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist. Calle’s work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement of the 1960s known as Oulipo. Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy. She is recognized for her detective-like ability to follow strangers and investigate their private lives. Her photographic work often includes panels of text of her own writing.
Calle began working as an artist in the 1970s, after traveling the world for seven years. When she returned to Paris, the city in which she was born, she recalls feeling isolated and lost; this isolation inspired her to investigate the lives of the people around her. Her first photographs were of graves marked simply mother and father.
Although much of her work employs voyeurism, Calle has allowed her own life to be put on display as well. She became so intrigued by following her unwitting subjects that she wanted to reverse the relationship, and become the subject herself. She asked her mother to hire a private detective to follow her, without the detective knowing that she had arranged it, with the hopes that his investigation would provide photographic evidence of her existence.

Sylwia Nikko Biernacka - absolvent of Social Sciences Department of Poznań University, photographer, creator of Machina Fotografika Foundation

never in the limelight

I like people for their weaknesses and faults. I get on well with ordinarypeople. We talk. We start with the weather, and little by little we get to
the important things.

When I photograph them it is not as if I were examining them with a
magnifying glass, like a cold and scientific observer. It's very brotherly.
And it's better, isn't it, to shed some light on those people who are never
in the limelight.
-Robert Doisneau

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