Photographer and filmmaker, who graduated from the polish Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk.
Her work is described as redefining the fashion and documentary landscapes, where images defy the conventions and restrictions set by mainstream media.
Her latest series from Studzieniec juvenile detention center ‘Imago’ was recently featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions i.e. Raster Gallery and Annroy Gallery at Photo London.
Because of being socially engaged and interested in storytelling, she uses her expressive visual language as a form of narration of a full story captured in one single frame, while shooting portraits, fashion editorials, art pieces and advertising campaigns for various designers and well-known brands.
About ‘Imago’:
Imago is an entomological term. As the definition says: “imago (Lat.) is an adult insect, perfect, the final stage of the development of the species.”
Insects in the imago stage, grasshoppers, beetles, flies, look adult but are smaller. All of their organs, including the sex organs are fully shaped but the young insects don’t use all of the functions of their bodies.
The chitin cuirasses that cover their bodies are still soft and elastic, becoming harder with time. Crumpled wings adopt a shape and they start to be fully apt.
Imago are therefore not larvae or chrysalis and they go through no further changes. At the same time, they are not fully adult. This zoological metaphor is especially striking in the case of the series portrayed by Zuza Krajewska.
The boys in her portraits don’t live at their own homes with parents and siblings, but in a youth custody center. How did they get there? Due to their experiments with adulthood and by not observing societies’ rules of conduct.
One beat up someone, another has been stealing since he was a child, another is a rapist. If he had been an adult, he would have been sent to jail. The custody center is supposed to reintroduce them back into society and teach them how to function among people.
When they leave the center as 18-year olds, they will have to deal with the world without the help of their teachers, their therapy and without the limitations previously imposed on them. How will they use the freedom that they will regain?
The portraits taken by ZuzaKrajewska are full of dualities. The figures who look at us from the photos seem to be on one hand – childish, clumsy and innocent, on the other strikingly adult, as if they had experienced life.
Their bodies still belong to those of kids; skinny necks, smooth torsos dressed in clothes that are a bit too large. The smooth faces without hair sometime show the waggish smile of the class brawler, another time a grin of pursed lips revealing a ruthless obstinacy.
The eyes of a boy in one photo sparkle with enthusiasm and lively optimism, from another image a teenager looks at us, his eyes telling us that “he has already seen everything”. Additionally – there is a factor of unification.
Each of them has short hair, wears similar clothes; somehow they rid themselves of individual attributes, trying to become part of a group. A pack of young wolves.
In these photos, there is also something else; some unexpressed solidarity with their heroes.
Krajewska, one of the best Polish photographers, professionally fulfilled, a mother of a 1-year old daughter, does not look down on her models, she does not judge them. Rather she sees her own mistakes, hesitations and fears in them. Because maybe we stay teenagers who only pretend to be adults forever?
