2022 Nikon-NOOR Academy Poland

Katarzyna Ślesińska | Ursula Groos | Doro Zinn | Anna Liminowicz | Julia Zabrodzka | Katerina Kouzmitcheva | Jagoda Malanin | Jadwiga Janowska | Iga Mroziak | Sylwia Penc | Zula Rabikowska | Milena Natalia Soporowska | Kasia Rysiak | Alexandra Radu

Zula Rabikowska

NOTHING BUT A CURTAIN

“Now, if I was asking people about how communism affected their gender identity, people might be scared to answer that in the open way they did last summer,” says photographer Zula Rabikowska.

The end of communism meant the loss of former identities and acquiring a new sense of individuality. In the former Eastern Bloc, the end of communism led to the escalation of gender-specific segregation in the labour market, contributing to a ‘feminisation of poverty’ and economic divisions between men and women.

“To this day, growing up in Central and Eastern Europe means facing male-dominated political systems, sexist stereotypes, restrictive beauty standards, and religious expectations. I travelled along the former Iron Curtain border, across countries that used to divide the continent, to document how younger generations experience traces of the obsolete world order.”

Zula Rabikowska

(She/Her) Born in Poland, based in UK. In May 2020 Zula co-founded the Red Zenith Collective, a platform for womxn and non-binary creatives from Central and Eastern Europe. Her work was selected by the OPEN20 Moving Image, shown at Winchester Gallery and Enjoy Museum of Art Beijing in China. Zula and was nominated for Budapest International Foto Awards, Moscow International Foto Award, Prix Levallois, BarTur Photo Award Leica Magazine Photojournalist of the Year. Zula’s images have been featured by numerous publications such as the BBC, The Guardian, The Calvert Journal, The Culture Trip, Reckless Magazine, South West Collective, Photograd, She’s Got Wonder, Saigoneer, Café Babel, Stories from Poland, The First News, Coolura24, and Londynek.net. Zula also works as a freelance photographer in London and Kraków (Poland).

Alexandra Radu

‘We exist!’

Once upon a time, the land that is now Malaysia used to be a space in which gender-fluid individuals were seen as closer to the divine. As early as the 15th century, androgynous priests dressed in women's attire served in the palaces of sultans of the Malay Sultanates. In Borneo, male-bodied shamans adopted the feminine dress and took normatively gendered males as their husbands as recently as the early 20th century.

In today's post-colonial Muslim context of Malaysia, both the civil and the Islamic law ban same-sex relationships, and the LGBTQ+ community in Malaysia is facing oppression and discrimination daily. Despite Malaysia's anti LGBTQ+ stance, the community empowers itself and thrives in safe spaces. Alexandra documented community gatherings, parties, and art events, scenes that allow the community's voice to be heard through art and activism.

Alexandra Radu

Alexandra (she/her) is a Romanian photojournalist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Alexandra has worked as a newspaper staff photographer for five years in Bucharest. Seven years prior, Alexandra has been working as a freelance photojournalist in South East Asia. Alexandra’s visuals have been published in Al-Jazeera, the Associated Press, Reuters, Anadolu Agency, UNFPA, UN Women, USAID, among others.

Anna Liminowicz

The war is coming from russia

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused widespread human suffering and untold physical damage. It has also created the largest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War.

In the first two weeks of the war, more than one million people left Ukraine and most headed to Poland. Cities, towns and villages all along the Polish border became overwhelmed with Ukrainians seeking shelter. Due to the decision made by the Ukrainian government to ban adult males from leaving the country, the vast majority of the people arriving were women with children.

For the people fleeing the war, there was no escaping the heartbreak of leaving their families and homes behind.

This selection of photographs portrays the initial wave of people who poured into Poland after Feb. 24. They capture the fear and anguish that many of them faced — from the little boy travelling with his mother in a car marked children to the loneliness of people waiting in train stations, the fear of African students caught up in the fighting and the tearful farewell of a grandfather who brought his granddaughter to safety in Radymno (Poland) and then returned to Ukraine to be with his wife.

These were the first weeks of harsh decision-making for all those who fled war-torn Ukraine. 

The photos were taken along the Polish border for “The Globe and Mail."

Anna Liminowicz

Anna regularly works with several international publications, including The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, NRC, and numerous others.

Anna divides her work between assignments and the development of her long-term personal projects. Social issues are the main focus of her photographic interest. Winner of the Krzysztof Miller Prize for the courage to look, she has won two Grand Press Photo awards for her project “Between the Blocks.”

She is a grantee of the National Geographic Society's Emergency Fund for Journalists with the project: Virus of Fear. She recently finished a non-fiction book called Zamalowane okna (translating to: “Painted-over Windows”) which will be released on May 25, 2022.