Photographer Maria Dabrowski hopes that art does not lose its tactility and continues to be experienced in space (not just digital).
With the analogue photo camera in my pocket, I am often intuitively touched by my subject, after which I dive into the content.
Photographer Maria Dabrowski.
Featured image: Exhibition view. Museum Arnhem.
Photographer Maria Dabrowski, 2018. Image credit: Inge Hondebrink.
How do you describe yourself in the context of challenging people’s perspectives via your work and art?
This is a tough question. My work is intimate, sometimes personal. I like to make people think about the social-cultural context and thin line between private and public.
I want to share my story but also let the audience think and experience by themselves.
It is important to know your working method and to have trust that the initial uncertainty, of not knowing where it is heading, will eventually fade. It is a part of the process, not the outcome.
How do you deal with the conceptual difficulty and uncertainty of creating new work?
I shoot a lot of material intuitively. It is important to know your working method and to have trust that the initial uncertainty, of not knowing where it is heading, will eventually fade. It is a part of the process, not the outcome. The process to become conceptual takes time.
Tell us about the evolution of your practice over the years. What would you call your style?
With the analogue photo camera in my pocket, I am often intuitively touched by my subject, after which I dive into the content.
The origins of my photo work can be traced back to documentary photography. My long-term analogue photography projects, which show considerable involvement in the portrayed subjects, are often represented as photo installations and in book form.
My research and photographic work in which (cultural) identity serves as a foundation, result in personal works in which feelings of displacement are predominant. My images contain a certain tension behind the initially inconspicuous images of everyday life.
I am very involved with my subjects, for instance for my book project Memed: “Every day is a different day” (2009) I stepped for months into the shoes of Memed, a refugee from Iran. For fifteen years, he led an illegal life in Utrecht. The photography and a personal letter to Memed included in the book, focuses on the elusiveness of his existence and constricted way of living.
Memed: “Every day is a different day”. Photographer Maria Dabrowski. 2009.
For ‘Odsłonić’ (2019) it was partly due to my recent travels to Poland and Western Ukraine that I desired to create a photo book that would reflect the uprooting and the strong emotions of attachment and detachment within me and my family. The central theme of this photo book is a personal family narrative and a search for the roots of my family (Poland and Western Ukraine). The book shows an intimate portrait of that journey in which I try to show my own family relations, suppressed emotions and stories.
For my latest work in progress called Symbiosis (2016) I have portrayed a young woman from the beginning of her pregnancy for a period of eighteen months. Intrigued by the changing body, the series shows an intimate portrait of the process towards motherhood. I became fascinated by the physical exposure, pregnancy, the internal and external developments and the surrender that a mother experiences.
I’ve noticed in the last years that my documentary style photography is shifting more towards autonomous photography and its spatial presentation.
Photographer Maria Dabrowski. Installation view. 99+1, Valkhof Museum Nijmegen, 2018.
The beautiful thing I find about photography is that I can question my surrounding.
What inspires you? Let’s talk about your frameworks, references and process.
Time, existence, present, past, history, social, cultural, political topics. Often I’m inspired by my immediate surrounding; home, family, friends, nature and so on.
The beautiful thing I find about photography is that I can question my surrounding. This way of thinking is also what I want to convey to my viewers. Taking photographs is like a personal freedom.to me.
Photographer Maria Dabrowski, photograph from the series ‘Konik’, 2010, colour negative film.
For instance, in Konik (2010), I questioned the efforts to restore nature to its ‘wild’ original state whereby offspring of Konik horses were brought back from Poland to the Netherlands. Ironically, during this striving to a self-reliant ecosystem, these ‘wild’ horses had to meet strict visual and behavioural requirements.
An Artist who inspired me very much in his work is Anri Sala. He often makes interesting works which I find very challenging and interesting to watch. For instance, Intervista – Finding the Words (1998) is a video in which Sala confronts his mother with old footage of her participating in a Communist rally during Albania’s traumatic past. For me, this work is about the impossibility of approaching a historical event objectively. It is about a certain “disruption” in which the film represents “the break with the past”, about a state of being somewhere “in between”. This in-between feeling, and questioning the truth around you, is precisely what fascinates me.
Anri Sala, Film stills from Intervista, 1998, colour video, duration 26:00 minutes.
What were your biggest learning and hiccups along the way in your artistic journey?
To understand that you can get stuck in “new” themes, and to give these themes time to create new material.
How does your audience interact and react to the work you put out into the world?
People are touched by the images they ‘experience’; they recognise themselves or are triggered to think about the subjects I bring up.
What were you working on when the lockdown was announced?
Luckily, I was already working on a new work for an exhibition in July. I am currently editing this work and trying out the installation, it is a project on the instinctive side of motherhood.
How are you balancing life and work at home during this period? How has this affected your practice and plans?
Strangely enough, my life was not so much affected. My trip to photo London was unfortunately postponed, my book Odsłonić was nominated there for MACKS first book award. However, my other work did not stop, I work part-time in an organic bakery and in the remaining hours I work outside, at home or in my studio on my photography.
What is there a crying need for in the art world today?
Grants for creating new work, programs to learn and gain experience, spaces to come together and make art accessible for the society.
Art should be seen as an essential part of our society, it is a way of reflecting on our world. Artists must also be paid for their hard work. Personally, I hope art remains something to experience in space (not just digital) and that it does not lose its tactility.
What do you look for while viewing art? Which shows, performances and experiences have shaped your own creative process?
There are many artist that inspire me, but if I have to choose two masters who always are inspirational to me are; Krzysztof Kieślowski who directed films of a 1988 Polish drama series, called The Decalogue and Sergej Paradzanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates.
But for instance my preview work ‘Odsłonic’́ I remember studying works of Christian Boltanski, and Seiichi Furuya. These are complex, ‘heavy’ works but very inspirational during the beginning process of the work, in which I was dealing with themes like family history and trauma or memories.
Photographer Maria Dabrowski, photograph from the series Odsłonić.
How do you balance the contradicting motivations: commercial v/s creative? How does your interaction with a curator, gallery or client evolve from the initial interface, to the working-involvement-relationship?
My work is in essence non-commercial. For years I searched for this balance and came to the conclusion that I only want to work as an artist. This, I could accomplish by working part-time as an employee. Of course, I work now and then on assignment, but only if there is room for my own artistic view.
What was your first sale? Do you handle the commercials yourself or is it outsourced to a gallery/agent?
I am most of all a bookmaker, my first sale was a book from a small run handmade book ten years ago. I am not affiliated with a gallery.
Tell us about your studio, what kind of place is it? Could you describe your usual workday in the studio?
It is inside an old barrack. I share my studio with three other artists. It is important that I have a space for myself, were I can focus on my own work, answer emails, do the accounting, do research for my projects, discuss assignments etc. It is good to have a space outside home where I cannot be distracted
Photographer Maria Dabrowski in her studio with Yorick de Vries from design studio “studio another day”, 2019.
Are you more of a studio artist or naturally collaborative by nature? How do you feel about commissions?
Both. I work often on my own projects outside the studio and sometimes on assignments. But to get to the outcome of both I am collaborative.
For example, for the photobook Odsłonić, I worked with a design studio – ‘Studio Another Day’ and a production assistance, Trudy Dorrepaal from Art Libro.
How many works do you make in a year? How many would you like to be making?
My projects often overlap. For example, I can work five years on one project and seven months on another. Think I would feel very satisfied if I finished one or two projects a year. The most important thing is the ability, and the foundation to create.
Before you go – you might like to browse our Artist Interviews. Interviews of artists and outliers on how to be an artist. Contemporary artists on the source of their creative inspiration.