"Reminiscences" is a bridge between who we were and who we have become. It is an attempt to capture and understand the continuity of life through images — emotional, subtle, filled with light and shadow. I immerse myself in an intimate space of memory — both conscious and unconscious, personal and universal. I weave a story about the fragility of human existence and the traces left by emotions, relationships, and experiences etched into the fabric of time. Memories — fleeting yet persistent — return to our consciousness in the most unexpected moments.
I return to family photographs, to landscapes of memories — to places that have faded away, such as the first family home, now reduced to ruins. Through collage, I tell a story that is both personal and universal. Looking at old photographs, we perceive what once escaped our notice. The past, though seemingly distant, permeates the present — alive in scents, sounds, and details captured in the image.
In its psychological sense, reminiscence describes the phenomenon where older people more vividly recall memories from their youth, especially from between the ages of 10 and 30. This project resonates with that phenomenon, showing how memory operates beyond linear time — selectively, sensually, intuitively.
The project is composed of photographs and family objects, each carrying a profound emotional charge and evoking memories: – remains of the first family home — now ruins, rubble, earth, and glass, – a gravy boat from 1970 — a remembrance of family dinners, – my mother's First Communion keepsake from 1955.
These rituals — shared meals, family celebrations, daily gestures — permeate through time. The women of one lineage — my grandmother, my mother, myself, and my daughter — create a continuity of experience, where only the length of the dress changes, but the essence of connection endures.
Childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age. A dialogue between times. Enduring presence.
Joanna Borowiec
Visual artist and photographer for whom the medium of photography serves as a starting point for reflection on what is fleeting, forgotten, and yet fundamental — memory, identity, and emotion. In my projects, I strive to build bridges between personal experience and universal narratives. Photography for me is not merely a documentation of reality, but a way of interpreting it — filtering it through personal experience, intuition, and artistic sensitivity.
I graduated from the European Academy of Photography (EAF) in Warsaw, with a diploma from the Studio of Creative and Expressive Photography (2010). Since 2016, I have been a member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF). Since 2018, I have also been a member of the Halo Kultura Association in Gdynia. In 2023, I joined the Polish Women Photographers Association and the PWP Club. In 2019, I founded the Q Sztuce Foundation in Gdynia, dedicated to promoting art and supporting creative initiatives.
In 2020, I was awarded an artistic scholarship by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
I am the winner of the Discovery of the Year award at the prestigious International Photography Awards (IPA) in the USA, the Grand Prix at the 22nd Biennale of Photography in Photographic Techniques and Digital Image Processing in Ostrów Wielkopolski, and have been honored with the title of Talent of the Year by the British organization The Independent Photographer.
I have participated in 15 solo exhibitions and over 30 group exhibitions, presenting my works both in Poland and abroad, at prestigious institutions such as the National Museum of Singapore, Iserlohn Museum in Germany, the Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów in Warsaw, the Centre for Contemporary Art in Toruń, Millepiani Gallery in Rome, Lucie Gallery in Los Angeles, House of Lucie Gallery in Budapest, and the Gdynia Cultural Centre.
https://joannaborowiec.com/
Opening:
19.09.2025 | 19:30
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Thurdsay | 10:00–18:00
Friday | 12:00–20:00
Saturday–Sunday | 12:00–17:00
Gallery of Modern Art Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum in Bydgoszcz