Aldona Kmieć, In between (PLACES 2024)

Web:

https://aldonakmiec.com/

Growing up in communist-era Poland, I began photographing as a teenager with a Soviet-made Smena camera. My work explores memory, identity and migrant narratives, primarily within the Polish diaspora and asylum seeker community. This work is an attempt to process my conflicting emotions of living between two different worlds: my native Poland where my family lives, and Australia where I have settled. This reality has brought me an enduring sense of dissonance and instability. The constant pull and push of remembering the traditions, customs and culture of home creates invisible heaviness. The climate, time difference and Australian mispronunciations of Kosciuszkos and Strzeleckis, at times, seem impossible to reconcile.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.