Joanna Borowiec

I am a visual artist and photographer working with various media such as installation, happening, collage, and painting. I specialize in historical and alternative photographic processes, including wet plate collodion and cyanotype e.c.t., which allow me to explore the materiality of the image and the delicate relationship between process and emotion.

In my practice, I focus on memory, heritage, and identity. My works often emerge from reflection on human fragility, inner experience, and the traces we leave behind. I use photography as a way to tell stories that are deeply personal yet universal stories that speak to what is invisible but profoundly human.

My artistic sensitivity reveals itself through the slow rhythm of creation, the silence of light, and the tactile nature of handmade images. Each print carries a part of me a gesture, a trace, a moment suspended in time. By working with noble and alternative techniques, I create unique, unrepeatable works that resist mechanical reproduction. This intimate process allows me to preserve the subtle tension between presence and absence, memory and impermanence.

A graduate of the European Academy of Photography (EAF) in Warsaw, she completed her diploma in the Studio of Creative and Expressive Photography.
She has been a member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF) since 2016, the Polish Women Photographers (PWP) Association since 2023, and the Halo Kultura Association in Gdynia, where she has been running the Open Photography Studio since 2018. She is also the founder of the Q Sztuce Foundation, established in 2019 in Gdynia, which promotes art and supports creative activities.

She is a recipient of the ZAiKS Creative Fund Scholarship (2025) and the Artistic Scholarship awarded by the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2020, Culture program).

My work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Vintage Grand Prix at the Vintage Photo Festival in Bydgoszcz (2025), Discovery of the Year at the International Photography Awards (IPA) in the USA (2023), and the Grand Prix at the 22nd Biennale of Photography in Photographic Techniques and Digital Image Processing in Ostrów Wielkopolski (2022). In 2021, I was honored as Talent of the Year by the British organization The Independent Photographer.

She has participated in over 15 solo exhibitions and more than 30 group shows,
presenting her works in Poland and abroad at renowned venues such as the National Museum of Singapore, Iserlohn Museum (Germany), Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów (Warsaw), Centre for Contemporary Art (Toruń), Millepiani Gallery (Rome), Lucie Gallery (Los Angeles), House of Lucie Gallery (Budapest), and Gdynia Cultural Centre.
Her photographs and articles have appeared in respected international magazines, including Black+White Photography (UK) and Black & White Magazine (Canada).