My Book Story is a project dedicated to personal testimonies about books and reading. This project was created in collaboration with multicultural participants at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. While studying abroad it was natural for me to get in touch with different cultures, nationalities and their points of view. As it was my last project at the academy I wanted it to honour all those amazing people I had met during my study stay there. Working together towards a mutual goal—sharing our passion for books and reading—was for me the biggest satisfaction. But it wasn't only about work—it was a great deal of fun as well!
The project consists of series of posters and a catalogue. First of all I asked participants to meet up with me and tell me about their attitude towards reading. I also asked them to write down these ideas, which I later used in the catalogue. Consequently I arranged a mutual meeting, took portrait photos of participants and edited them using double exposure technique. Finally I added short quotes to the edited photos and created posters.
For me reading is a process when ideas from books penetrate our minds and souls and become a part of us. With this idea on mind I intentionally used double exposure technique to indicate such penetration of ideas from books into our own bodies. All the photos used for double exposure were hand-picked and specific for each person, based on the information they provided me regarding their relationship towards reading.
Above are original portrait photos along with stock photos used for double exposure.
Below is the result of the photo manipulation—final posters.
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An essential part of this project is a catalogue of personal stories related to books and reading. Its content is multilingual (English, French, Polish, Slovak and Italian—each participant was free to write in their native language). Special thanks belongs to all the wonderful people who took part in this project: Mária Beňová (SR), Giacomo Cerri (IT), Annapaola Ciraci (IT), Olga Konik (PL), Marcin Niedziałek (PL), Mary Nowak (PL), Stéphanie Thiriet (FR), Helena Zwinczewska (PL), prof. Władysław Pluta and dr Basia Widłak.
I really enjoyed working on this project. Here are a few photos from the making off. It was a wonderful experience!
