Jan Brykczyński (b. 1979) is a documentary photographer. In his work, he focuses on the peripheries of Eastern Europe. He is also interested in the relationship between man and nature.
He studied photography at the Cinematography Department of the Łódź National Film, Television and Theatre School and at the FAMU Film School in Prague. He is currently doing an MA course at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava. He has taught photography at the School of the Association of Polish Art Photographers in Warsaw (ZPAF), while nowadays he is one of the leaders of the mentoring program organized by the Sputnik Photos Collective.
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Sputnik Photos
In 2006, together with Agnieszka Rayss, Rafał Milach, and others he co-founded the International Association of Photojournalists Sputnik Photos. They published several collective photo books, such as U – about Ukraine, Stand BY – about Belarus, IS(NOT) – on Iceland, and Distant Place – about the Warsaw side of the Vistula River.
Brykczyński’s projects realized as part of collective endeavours usually continue existing as independent series. Such was the case with Árnes, created in Iceland. His portrait of a small community of sheep-breeders granted him the prestigious Syngenta Award and allowed him to pursue the project titled Farming Tribes, in which he investigated the relationship between nature and humans in the context of big city life, based on people living in New York City, Yerevan, Warsaw, and Nairobi. His other series, Primeval Forest, presenting imitations of nature found in the Polish-Belarusian borderlands, was awarded in a competition organized by LensCulture.
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Boiko
Boiko is Brykczyński’s first individual book project. He managed to document the life of an enclosed community living in the Eastern Carpathians.
If this image was created in the Middle Ages, the sleigh would look similar, the horse would be similar, the outfits would differ, but the flags and cross would look the same – as well as the faces.
His colour photographs are presented in a fairy tale-like fashion. “I wanted to show a fairy tale”, the photographer explains, who dedicated his album to his several months old daughter. Thanks to that, the world in Boiko is dreamlike, based on a surreal and archetypical image of the countryside. Jan Brykczyński was photographing the Boiko over the course of three years. The text accompanying the photographs in the album was written by Taras Prokhasko.
Brykczyński has received many awards, for photojournalism (Grand Press Photo, Newsreportage), as well as for art photography (Sony Award). He has also been a grantee of the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage and of the Young Poland programme, organized by the National Centre for Culture. He is represented by the Anzenberger Agency based in Vienna.
His works have been published in such magazines as the International New York Times, Die Welt, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, etc.
Artist’s website: www.janbrykczynski.com
Solo exhibitions:
- 2014 Boiko - Latvian Museum of Photography, Riga, Latvia
- 2014 Boiko - Leica Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
- 2013 Boiko - Anzenberger Gallery, Vienna, Austria
- 2013 Boiko - Galeria F7, Bratislava Month of Photography, Slovakia
- 2009 Papierowa kurtyna - Warsaw University Library
- 2006 Liceum - Galeria Obok ZPAF, Warsaw
Selected group exhibitions:
- 2014 EPEA 02 - The New Social, Nobel Peace Center, Oslo
- 2014 Distant Place - Festival Circulations, Paris
- 2014 Sputnik Photos retrospective, Fotodok, Utrecht
- 2013 Grand Prix of the Łódź Photo Festival, post-competition show
- 2013 Stand BY - Leica Gallery, Warsaw
- 2013 Stand BY – Szara Gallery, Cieszyn, Poland
- 2012 Stand BY – Pogranicze Foundation, Sejny, Poland
- 2012 Distant Place – Copernicus Science Centre, Warsaw
- 2012 IS(not) - Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Ireland
- 2012 U – National Museum in Gdańsk, Poland
- 2011 Is (not) – Menningarhus in Akureyri, La Art Museum in Hveregerdi and at Gerduberg Cultural Center in Reykjavik, Iceland
- 2011 Is (not) – National Museum in Gdańsk, Klima Bocheńska Gallery in Warsaw
- 2010 The Summer of Youth – Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
- 2010 U –Contact Festival, Toronto, Canada
- 2010 U –Noorderligcht Gallery, Groningen, the Netherlands
- 2009 East – Anzenberger Agency, Central European House of Photography, Bratislava, Slovakia
Ed. Michał Dąbrowski, November 2014, transl. Ania Micińska February 2015