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Czarna Madonna

Czarna Madonna is a photographic project realized within one year working closely with my subjects, to through their presence depict love’s harmful sides and fantastical aspects of family environment. Inspired by mysterious events of my grandmother’s childhood, I represent the duality that family relationships have. Czarna Madonna deals with aspects of photographic performativity, loss and creativity, where documentary and fiction constantly overlap. The project examines the very simple division between good and bad, real and imaginary and the constant flow of those forces in life.

The project has been shown in a numerous group exhibitions and got shortlisted for a number of photography book awards including MACK’s First Book Award in London as well as Foto Book Festival in Kassel, Germany. Czarna Madonna was part of the Verzesca Photo festival in Valley Verzesca, Switzerland in 2017.

My Mother is a Hippie

In My Mother is a Hippie, I deal with the hunting stereotypes of the mother whose love should and is “unconditional”. I explore the power and powerlessness that bonds so deeply within the mother-child relationship. I am fascinated with the unsettling duality behind the experience of motherhood. The constant forces of needing and wanting are crucial elements in the construction of mother-child relationship, and I try to present these forces on the photographs. I work with different “masks” of motherhood, trying to challenge the visual representation of motherhood as single-minded identity.

My Mother is a Hippie was selected for the main exhibition during Les Boutographies Rencontres Photographiques de Montpellier in 2021, as well as projected during Riga Photo month. One of the portrait from the project is published in a collective publication Eye Mama: Poetic Truths of Home and Motherhood published by TeNeues in 2023.

MLEKO

Mleko (2021-2025) is a visual research project that is a reaction to my fascination with the substance of human milk and its elaborate nature. Through this project, I explore human milk, but also all that flows with it: life source, physical pain, mental changes, overload of happiness, dependence, opinions as well as social, psychological, and at core personal histories of the beginnings. When in 2021 I gave birth to my first child I found myself with a new body, a body that produced this biological liquid that was “designed” to the needs of my child. I became fascinated by this substance, and by the fact that what I knew about my physical self had changed and transformed me. I started to photograph and research human milk.
Less than 50% of babies worldwide are breastfed according to WHO. For decades, the commercial milk formula industry has used underhand marketing strategies to turn the feeding of infants into a multibillion-dollar business. Breast milk is known as the primary source of nutrition for children; it contains fat, protein, carbohydrates, variable minerals, and vitamins, which help protect an infant against infection and inflammation. WHO recommends a min. of 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding and min. of 2 years of supplemented breastfeeding.
As Jacqueline Rose writes in “Mothers; An Essay on Love and Cruelty”: “The supreme symbol of mother love is, of course, the breast, which reappears in modern discussions of motherhood”, which makes the subject of breastfeeding central and opinionated. Milk is breaching a gap between milk giver and child, between animal and human, between nature and culture, between self and other, between myth and world. All the personal, social, political, psychological, and physical aspects construct the very “simple” act of breastfeeding and the essence of human milk. Mleko is a surface under which the maternal body and its liquid nature are performed. In Mleko investigated diverse perspectives on human milk using photography, text, video, and sound interviews with breastfeeding women, lactation experts, milk banks, and milk donors, hoping it can become a more familiar topic and less of a taboo in social and private spaces alike.
Jagoda Wisniewska

Jagoda Wiśniewska (b. 1987, Poland), an artist working with photography and video, based in Lausanne, Switzerland. I hold a MA in Art Direction from ECAL and a BA in Photoraphy & Film from Edinburgh Napier University. My work explores intimate themes, particularly family relationships, womanhood and the maternal. I have a deep interest in nonlinear storytelling, which has found expression in photographic books. My self-published photobook Czarna Madonna was shortlisted for MACK’s First Book Award, Unseen Dummy Award, and Kassel Dummy Award. My work has been exhibited and published across Europe, Japan, and the US, with presentations at Photo Elysée, Verzasca Fotofestival, Rencontres d’Arles, and Les Boutographies. I received photography production grants from Ville de Lausanne, Canton de Vaud, and Fondation Leenaards. Alongside my personal projects, I balance my time with commissioned work, collaborating on editorial and artistic assignments.

Location

Lausanne, Vaud

Contact

Awards

  • 2019MACK'S First Book Award / Shortlisted / London
  • 2018Lucie Foundation / Shortlisted: Photo Made Scholarship / USA

Exhibitions

  • 09.2025-09.2026Mleko: Explorer les laits maternels, solo exhibition, Institut des Humanités en Médecine (IHM), Lausanne
  • 10.2024-10.2025Mleko: Explorer les laits maternels, solo exhibition, Maternité du CHUV, Lausanne
  • March 2025Mleko, solo exhibition, Gallery OKNO, Edinburgh Scotland
  • 06-09.2023You went in the water, solo exhibition, PHOTO ELYSÉE, LE SIGNAL L, Lausanne, Suisse
  • 2022My mother is a Hippie, Les Boutographies - Rencontres Photographiques de Montpellier / Main selection

Publications

  • 2016Czarna Madonna