We caught up with one of the 2015 Jerwood/Photoworks Awards winners, Joanna Piotrowska, to discuss her win, her new work and her working process.
Jerwood/Photoworks Awards 2015
Each artist has received an award of £5,000 to support the making of new work for exhibition, with a significant production fund and mentoring support. The three artists will present their work in a group exhibition as part of the Jerwood Visual Arts programme which will open at Jerwood Space in November 2015 and tour to other partner venues including Impressions Gallery, Bradford.
Embarking on her Jerwood/Photoworks Awards project, Joanna planned to continue her interest in exploring psychotherapeutic methods such as process-oriented psychology as a framework to examine how socio-political factors affect people in their private lives and personal sphere. Through focusing on the perpetual state of anxiety within modern society, she hoped to uncover the unconscious, long lasting consequences of historical events intertwining with the current climate of potential catastrophe and unseen threat.
Joanna Piotrowska
PW: What does winning a Jerwood/Photoworks Award mean to you?
JP: It gives me the possibility to do broader research on ideas and topics I’ve been exploring in my practice in the last few years.
It also allows me to find common ground in seemingly different projects I’ve already accomplished, plus those I haven’t started yet. It’s a time for me to see my practice as a whole, and draw links between different ideas to make the next project more accurate and more universal at the same time.
PW: Could you briefly describe what you’re working on now?
JP: At the moment, I’m reading about private-public constructions, mainly those which describe how the family is affected by political decision and social structures, as well as environmental and cultural factors that cause anxiety.
PW: How has your practice developed already?
JP: I’ve mainly been reading and making notes about things I’d like to try in the coming weeks. It’s hard to watch the progress, being in the middle of the working process. Thoughts coming up right now may bear the fruits very unexpectedly several months later. Exploration of everything that attracts and stimulates me, even if unrelated today, can become the part of the future project.
Joanna Piotrowska (b1985 Poland) received an MA in Photography from the RCA in 2013. In 2014 Joanna was awarded the MACK First Book Award for FROWST and in 2013 exhibited for Bloomberg New Contemporaries and Family Politics at Jerwood Space, London. FROWST was shown at Media Space, London in March 2015.
Click here to see more of Joanna’s work on our own site, or visit joannapiotrowska.com
Find out more about the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards and the other 2015 winners here.
