THE FACULTY

ABOUT US

The Faculty of Photography and Multimedia is foremost a community of pedagogues, students and doctoral students. We all share the passion for creating art and practising theoretical reflection that serves us to raise awareness about the phenomena in the photography world as well as related media. As a starting point we take in an anthropological idea of David Hockney, an english painter and an image researcher, who claimed that ‘equally as through words we think through images and dream images and try to understand people and our surroundings through images.’* We are attached to the concept of culture, but for many it is a concept running low. The concepts of culture have been changing, but its idealistic core has let us think about ourselves and the world around us in the categories exceeding the market-driven pragmatism. An inseparable part of the culture is art. We believe that we must constantly ask ourselves questions about its sense and purpose, and an appropriate question is already half of the answer.

The Faculty of Photography and Multimedia was founded in 2019. However, our history began in the 70s’ of the 20th century when in the College of Fine Arts – now known as the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts Łódź, first photography studios were formed. Authorial programmes were realised by such artists as Zbigniew Dłubak, professor Eugeniusz Pierzgalski, professor Grzegorz Przyborek, professor Konrad Kuzyszyn. Our current didactic and artistic  activity refers to tradition, but foremost is based on creative consideration over contemporary postmedia conditions of photography and visual arts.

Teachers of the Faculty educate on BA and MA Photography and Multimedia Studies in the field of photography and related areas, including specialised theoretical training. Our graduates are prepared to conduct individual professional artistic activity as well as to work in the cultural sector as a curator and animator of artistic, cultural, educational activities. A graduate is capable of realizing his/her own professional and artistic projects using workshop, technological and technical skills within the area of photography and multimedia.

Every studio is composed of a team of people who share a common way of conducting photography research, using research methods and individual or team concepts and paradigms. Studios are the places where knowledge and skills are generated and accumulated and they lay the basis for authorial yet coordinated within a framework of each major didactic activity. Employers and students of the Institute are active artists who practice theoretical reflection, get involved in team research activities which can gather graduate, Masters and PhD students. The outcomes of these researches are published and continually verified in creative and didactic processes.

*D. Hockney, M. Gayford, Historia obrazów, Rebis, Poznań 2016, s. 7.