From the Faith: Catholocism in Poland series by Maciek Nabrdalik
The Polish photographer presented his project Faith: Catholicism in Poland at France's Visa pour l'image International Festival of Photojournalism, also receiving a major grant to carry out his next large-scale documentary photography project
Faith: Catholicism in Poland was screened as part of the evening projection series at the festival, illustrating the role the Catholic Church plays in national identity, particularly in the more rural areas of Poland. Slowly the faith has been weakening as more and more Poles are taking on a more secular outlook characteristic of the west.
Following the screening, he was presented with the Pierre & Alexandra Boulat Grant, which endows a promising young photographer with €8000 to go towards the production of a project that will be included in the Economic Migrations series presented at the 2013 edition of Visa Pour l'Image. Economic Migrations will aim to documents migrations as a result of economic turmoil in three different countries. Nabrdalik was selected by a panel of jurors that included Jean-François Camp of Central Dupon, Cyril Drouhet of Figaro Magazine, Delphine Lelu of Visa Pour l'Image, as well as photographers Gary Knight and Pascal Maitre.
Maciek Nabrdalik (born 1980) is a graduate of Warsaw University of Technology. He gave up Computer Science for his greatest passion, photography, which he took up professionally in 2001. Nabrdalik began working in Euorope, Asia and the U.S., shooting for local newspapers, and worked as an assistant at photo shoots for world-acclaimed fashion magazines. In 2010 his Survivors series won Best of Photojournalism in the Portrait category, a project that documents Nazi camp survivors worldwide. In 2012 he was awarded with a grant from Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage to continue this project.
In June 2012 his Chernobyl's Outskirts series was presented in Hannover at the Lumix Festival for Young Journalism. The project portrays "life around the edges of the restricted area of Chernobyl, where most women are widows and it is widely believed that vodka is the best antidote to radiation. Memories of the time before the meltdown are all that remain for these people".
The Visa pour l'image Festival takes place in Perpignan between the 1st - 21st of September 2012.
For more information on Maciek Nabrdalik, see: www.nabrdalik.com and viiphoto.com
Editor: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: Press information