Meeting: “To look into the eyes of the wild. Photography in times of post-humanism”

May 8, 6 pm

“I wanted to look them in the eyes,” says Michał Korta, photographer, about his animal pictures taken by night. What are the tasks of photography in the modern post-humanistic world? Does the photographer have an advantage over the animals, or is it the other way around? Can you look in the eyes of what is wild? Maybe the night photography, wild by itself, allows to equalise both beings?

Those topics, and many more, will be discussed by our guests, Michał Korta and Małgorzata Lebda. Martyna Nowicka will be the host.

Renata Lis wrote about animals pictured by Korta: “After staring at the animals pictured by Korta for a long time, there is a surprising change happening – it turns out that the fear those animals inflict, paradoxically connects us with them. It is not our fear of them, as it seemed, but our common animalistic fear of darkness, pain, and death” (HERITO No. 39/2020).

Guests:

Michał Korta

Małgorzata Lebda, PhD

Host:

Martyna Nowicka

Venue:

The International Culture Centre in Krakow, Main Square 25, the Ravens Room

The meeting will be interpreted into the Polish Sign Language and will not be broadcast.

Bios:

Michał Korta  –  portrait anddo cumentary   photographer,   winner   of   numerous photographic awards. He represents the new generation of photographers for whom showing places and people is inseparably connected with capturing the social, historical or emotional background. In 2015, the Art Verseed portal included him in the group of five most interesting photographers of East-Central Europe. He works with magazines, agencies, and galleries, sometimes also with humanitarian organisations. In addition to Poland, he also worked on photographic projects in Central Asia, the USA, Israel, Africa, and the Balkans. He teaches photography in Poland and Switzerland and is the managing director of Kowalsky Gallery in Bochnia.

Dr. Małgorzata Lebda – scientist, columnist, and culture animator. She wrote six poem books, including “Uckermarker Dreams” (2019 Gdynia Literary Prize), “Mer de Glace” (2022 Wisława Szymborska Award), and “Lickerish” (nominated to the 2023 Bestsellery Empiku Award). Long distance runner. In September 2021, she ran, as part of a poetic and activistic movement, a distance of 1113 kilometers from the spring of the Vistula River to its embouchure to the Baltic Sea.

Martyna Nowicka – art historian, critic, and curator. Studied in Krakow, Berlin, and Stokholm. She is a postgraduate of the Art History Institute of Jagiellonian University. Organises the Krakow Art Salon. Published eg. in “Gazeta Wyborcza,” “Magazyn Szum,” “Tygodnik Powszechny,” and the quarterly magazine “HA!art.” Works at the Communications, Exhibitions and Visitor Experience Department of the Photography Museum in Krakow.

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