Curator’s talk: Zofia Rydet’s Visual Atlas of Reality

How do artists use photography to create their own unique record of life and shape our reality?

Hear from curator Karol Hordziej, who will be in conversation with Kate Bush, curator of the exhibition Family Values: Polish Photography Now, which explores themes of identity, family and home in the context of social and political change.

You’ll hear about the work of Zofia Rydet and more photographers from the New East and beyond, and see Zofia’s Sociological Record, the monumental project in which she set out to photograph every single person in Poland, alongside other artistic “records” of individual and social realities, and learn methods of reading these visual records.

These projects include early 20th-century photography, from the portraits of August Sander to the documentary programme of the Farm Security Administration, and more recent projects by artists such as Jon Rafman, Peter Piller, Gerhard Richter, Taryn Simon, Hans Eijkelboom and Anouk Kruithof.

Karol and Kate will also be on hand for a Q&A with the audience. You will have the opportunity to view the exhibition Family Values before and after the talk.

About Karol Hordziej

Karol Hordziej is a cultural manager and curator.

He is the president of the Foundation for Visual Arts, a Krakow-based non-profit arts organisation dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of the visual arts in Poland, with an emphasis on photography.

Since 2006, Hordziej has served as artistic director of the Krakow Photomonth Festival, an annual international photography festival organised by the Foundation.

From 2007 – 2011 he was a co-founder and director of the ZPAF i S-ka Gallery, a commercial contemporary photography gallery.

Recently, Hordziej curated a group show entitled Photography in Everyday Life, in collaboration with British curator Charlotte Cotton.

About Kate Bush

Kate Bush is a curator and critic specialising in contemporary art and photography. Kate is Adjunct Curator of Photography at Tate Britain. She was most recently Head of Photography at the Science Museum Group, including the Science Museum in London and National Media Museum in Bradford. In 2014 Kate curated Close and Far, a show on historical and contemporary Russian photography at Calvert 22 Foundation.

About the exhibition

Family Values: Polish Photography Now is a unique season of photography and events examining Polish visual culture from the second part of the 20th century and the current creative landscape of a nation with deep historical and emotional links to the UK.

At the centre of the season sits the first exhibition devoted to Polish photography in the UK, which amplifies themes of identity, home and family in the context of social and political change to explore how individual freedoms are found within the confines of the home, and how the domestic serves as a trope for the artistic exploration of different, darker questions concerning identity.

At its heart will be a presentation of the work of Zofia Rydet (1911 – 1997), a photographer much admired in Poland who is now coming to wide international prominence. Her work has never been seen in the UK.

In the exhibition, images by Zofia Rydet will be presented alongside contemporary Polish artists exploring similar topics in their work: Józef Robakowski, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Weronika Gęsicka, Aneta Bartos and Adam Palenta.

Exhibition curated by Kate Bush.

More information on the exhibition here.

Exhibition open to the public:

25 May – 22 Jul 2018

Wed – Sun, 12pm – 6pm

Free entry

Booking terms: pay what you wish

For a limited number of our events, attendees can pay what they wish for admission via Eventbrite. The suggested admission fee is £5. Please follow the booking URL to finalise your order.