Bydgoszcz ART/DOC Award
Bearing in mind Bydgoszcz local film circle’s traditions (Kazimierz Karabasz, Mirosław Dembiński, Maciej Cuske, Marcin Sauter or the Bydgoszcz Newsreel which has been functioning for over a decade) we have decided to establish a local award for the best documentary productions which participate in the Millennium Docs Against Gravity Festival’s competition – the BYDGOSZCZ ART.DOC AWARD. This year’s edition’s award will amount to Euro 2000. The winner will be selected by a jury composed of:
Magda Rucińska
Graphic artist, painter, author of texts on art, comic books and illustration. Her texts were published in “Lapma”, “Zwykłe Życie”, “Fabularia”, “Zeszyty Komiksowe” and “F5”. She has had several solo exhibitions, among others in “Wspólna” Gallery and Wieża Ciśnień in Bydgoszcz, Cheap East comic book gallery (Zamek Culture Centre) in Poznań, the City Gallery of Innowrocław and she has taken part in collective exhibitions in w BWA Bydgoszcz, MBWA Leszno, Bielsko-Biała BWA Gallery or Museum Schloss Herzberg am Harz in Germany.
She received the Minister of Culture and National Heritage scholarship (2009/2010) and the Mayor of Bydgoszcz scholarship. A finalist of the “Bielsko Autumn” Biennale (2017) who received three special mentions at the Leon Wyczółkowski Nationwide Painting Competition (2016, 2017, 2018). In 2018, together with Damiel Chmielewski, she created an illustrated children’s book Miasto Złotej (Tadam publishing house). In 2020, she defended her doctoral thesis at the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. Her works are a part of the Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum’s collection.
Marek Noniewicz
A visual artist who lives in Bydgoszcz and promotes 19th century photographic techniques. In his own work, he deals mainly with photography but he also uses installation, urban space activities or performance. About his own work, he says: “Photography is my main activity, but more and more often I think I am interested in photosensitivity. I am convinced that the way an image is saved reflects the way of thinking about it and its perception. Therefore, I reach for historic, experimental techniques or ephemeral forms of saving; I treat them as a kind of key to the language of the nature. Irreversibility and constant transformations of silver processes in a way correspond to the changeability of the natural world. What I try to record is the course of these changes.”
He worked on numerous educational projects. The key ones among them are: „Świat” (“The World”) – photography workshops for children from post-state farm environments organised in cooperation with the Association for the Development of the Krzywa and Jasionka Villages and the CZARNE publishing house (2002), „Lato w teatrze” (“Summer in the Theatre”) – photography and stage design workshops as a part of a project by the Z. Raszewski Theatre Institute (Gostycyn 2014, Borne Sulinowo 2015, 2018), “Look In the Darkness” – integration theatre and photography workshops as a part of the Very Young Culture programme (Bydgoszcz 2016), “Świat poza czasem” (“Out of Time World”) (Completed as a part of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage scholarship 2019)
In the cultural education projects, he uses the potential of photography as a creative tool for building the participants’ self-esteem. By reaching for historical techniques and alternative uses of photosensitive materials, he tries to develop the participants’ sensitivity to the world around them by equipping them in the ability to use the visual alphabet in building their own narratives.
The third member of the Bydgoszcz jury is going to be a representative of the District Bar Association in Bydgoszcz who will also traditionally give a special mention to a festival production devoted to broadly understood human rights’ defence.
