Joanna Duda, pianist and composer. The Faces of JazzArt project / Katowice JazzArt Festival / 2021

What is the One People Story project?

Without rush, with openness, curiosity about people, scenery and situation I meet Portraits. Beautiful faces, interesting personalities and places. Diversity attracts and fascinates me, evokes associations, inspires.

I reach for a medium-format analogue camera, because working this way helps to focus, think about what I want to do and why, and the slow process of image creation makes it easier to establish relationships with the portrayed person.

Finally, the aesthetics of this photograph is closer to me – I don’t need colour, I don’t care about perfect sharpness, and it’s good that sometimes the process of exposing or developing surprises me with unexpected effects.

I like these photographs on paper, a beautiful matt cardboard, and I keep my constantly growing collection in a special black box.

The paper is more important than screen for me, so here I have created only a gallery of one photo. I display each photograph for two weeks, with a change every other Monday.
HERE you can see a short video about this project.

The photographs were presented twice in the form of solo exhibitions, under the title “Portraits Met”. The first took place at the Katowice Gallery of the Association of Polish Art Photographers in Katowice PL in March 2019, while the second was at the Engram Gallery / Katowice Miasto Ogrodów in Katowice PL in September and October 2020. Curator: Katarzyna Łata.

You can see a short video from the second edition of Portraits Met HERE.

Selected photographs have also been presented in several group exhibitions.

One People Story has also produced series. “Particles” realised with actress Monika Wachowicz is an interpretation of human feelings and qualities. They were presented at the Korez Theatre Gallery as part of the International Performing Arts Festival A Part in 2017. In collaboration with the Katowice JazzArt Festival, there is also the series “Faces of JazzArt” (2020/2021), the essence of which are portraits of artists participating in the festival.

The collection consists of over 150 photographs at the moment, new ones are constantly being created.