Agnieszka Sejud – I Want To Be a Priest Like My Father

#2 min Tomáš Pospěch, Agnieszka Sejud

2. 3. 2022

Agnieszka Sejudfrom, the series I Want To Be a Priest Like My Father, 2020
Agnieszka Sejudfrom, the series I Want To Be a Priest Like My Father, 2020

Apart from studying law in Wroclaw, the Polish author Agnieszka Sejud also studied at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava. Her training, therefore, is in photography, even though she presents herself more as a visual artist and activist in her work, often as a member of the art duo KWAS, which she forms with her ICP classmate Karolina Wojtas.

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In her practice she works with photography, digital and analog collage, books and zines, video and installations. She uses these diverse media to examine human identity and individual freedom, tracing various systems of oppression that limit our independence. She questions the adopted rules and binding canons or responds to current social problems affecting Polish society. She often uses image distortions and deconstructions, and her worldview is mostly colorful, kaleidoscopic, even psychedelic.

Among other things, she is also the author of two self-published zines under the banner KWAS, and last year she made her book market debut with the her book HOAX (2020). This work was conceived as something between a photographic book and a distinctive zine or samizdat publication: it consists of loose pages placed in a plastic bag. Large, back-printed photos can be unfolded and viewed separately or framed and hung on the wall. The photos from this book are also particular. It is a collection on abundance, surfeiting. The reader is dazzled by the shiny areas full of acidic to poisonous artificial colors. Religious iconography clashes in the photographs with overflowing goods and plastic waste. They capture the present as a universe of post-truth and fake news, where truth has become obsolete, refuted by a world where playing for emotion is everything. The author uses spatial illusions and humor in her computer collages. Plastic flowers or folk religious motifs are a common motif, much of which seems to reflect the taste of a large percentage of today’s seniors. “It is a book, but also a non-book, a book without binding, which is falling apart like my country,” the author concludes on her website.

Agnieszka Sejud’s newer collection, I want to be a priest like my father (2020) also repeats the principle of overwhelmed, psychedelic collages, in which the motifs and meanings of the used photographs are accumulated and garbled. She describes this set as a “small post scriptum” to the previous HOAX project. In a series of collages, she captures Vatican officials and reflects on the contemporary Polish interweaving of church and state interests as well as anti-information campaigns. “What is the Vatican? The seat of a spiritual institution or the oldest corporation in the world?” the author asks, capturing the beautiful robes, large magnificent interiors, multiplying clasped hands studded with rings, gorgeous clothes, jewelry, gold and gold again.

 

All images: Agnieszka Sejudfrom, the series I Want To Be a Priest Like My Father, 2020

 

Text: Tomáš Pospěch

#41 Postdigital PhotographyProfileCollageIdentityPoliticalFeminismFakePostdigital photographyPhotobooks

Tomáš Pospěch

is an art historian and visual artist. He works as a teacher at the Institute of Creative Photography at SU in Opava and as a curator of photography at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. As an art historian, he focuses mainly on photography and contemporary art of Central Europe. He has authored or co-authored more than 40 books, including Eugen Wiškovský, Viktor Kolář, Jindřich Štreit, Jiří Hanke, Jan Jindra, Gustav Aulehla, Jaroslav Pulicar, Pavel Vavroušek and a selection of Josef Koudelka's diaries.

Agnieszka Sejud

is a photographer, visual artist and activist, member of the artistic duo KWAS. She lives and works in Poland. She uses various media to examine the make-up of human identity, the idea of individual freedom, and the systems of oppression that limit our independence.  

#41 Postdigital Photography

Few theorists of photography have a complex vision of the whole world of photography and the need not to confine this medium in discrete bubbles or groups of supporters. Filip Láb was one of these. He took part in debates during the preparation of issues of the magazine; he belonged to the editorial board. Filip left this world prematurely. His exceptional capacity to span photojournalism and to reflect on contemporary art was unique, and it is precisely this type of understanding and openness that helps to merge bubbles instead of reinforcing our confinement in them. We will all miss it. The intention of this issue is to develop the legacy of Filip Láb and his latest book of the same name, Postdigital Photography. Filip’s contributions consisted both in an interest in the medium of photography and the technological aspects of its further development, as well as in observing the media world and uncovering the manipulations that photography can facilitate in a way that is even dangerously brilliant. We will start on post-digital photography with the first digitally edited image in the world, John Knoll’s depiction of his girlfriend Jennifer in Tahiti. Artist Constant Dullaart dedicated an entire project to Jennifer using Photoshop filters with the ability to comment on both the recent past and ask questions about the future development of image making. Another paradigmatic example that Filip would rave with enthusiasm about is the case of photojournalist Jonas Bendiksen, whose book full of post-produced films is written about by Adam Mazur. What is postdigital photography? In this issue, it is a spectrum of approaches, contexts, and technological aspects. From DeepFace and use of artificial intelligence for automatic image retrieval, through the (un)hidden carbon footprint of data, fake news and the notion of post-truth, to manipulation through post-production, to artistic approaches from home-office desktop documents or wild post-internet aesthetics or lapidary mixing of photos into liquid mucus. A rich selection.

Filip Láb – Apostle of Future Photography

#5 min Filip Láb, Pavel Vančát

Filip Láb – Apostle of Future Photography

#41 Postdigital PhotographyProfilePostdigital photography

Filip Láb, who died unexpectedly and prematurely in May 2021, was not only a prominent theorist and teacher of photography, but was also one of a generation of artists that dealt with the shift in political polarities and radical changes in the photographic paradigm. His relatively short but very significant creative period, tied to his collaboration with Bára Mrázková, still surprises with its innovation and precision.

Josef Koudelka – Ruins

#2 min Tomáš Pospěch, Josef Koudelka

Josef Koudelka – Ruins

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What will Prague or New York look like in a thousand or two thousand years? My aim here is not to contribute to the dystopian genre, so popular today. But we do have a sufficient historical experience of the emergence and demise of civilizations. It is therefore not so hard to imagine that where New York City used to stand, waves will beat against the remaining concrete foundations of a few skyscrapers and Prague too will be reduced to the ruins of a few of the most significant buildings – if the city isn’t entirely abandoned, that is. Without depicting these scenes directly, such notions might follow from Josef Koudelka’s newest photographic series, titled Ruins.

Food Served to the Camera

#8 min Tomáš Pospěch

Food Served to the Camera

#42 FoodHistoryEnvironment

The ubiquity and primary biological need for food predetermine that food has undoubtedly been photographed by every photographer at some point. Furthermore, "gourmet pictures" enjoy great popularity nowadays. According to surveys, they are among the most liked pictures on Instagram and food bloggers are becoming "celebrities", bringing here joy, there wrinkles to waiters. There is a growing interest in the origin of ingredients, food blogs multiply, reality cooking shows are on TV, and restaurants with an open view of the kitchen pop up increasingly often. We are experiencing a turn in thinking about the appearance of our food and forms of eating.