The title “If You are Ok, I am Ok” comes from an event organized by queer collective kem in Warsaw. My work refers to the notion of care, both for the other and for the self. Caring is a very vulnerable and fragile, an invisible notion. It involves intimacy, closeness and communication with others. Care embodies the essence of personal disclosure. Building a relationship requires mutual energy and honesty in order to find yourself settled in the other, without losing your sense of self at the same time. Care is the desire to take care of the other person and their body. Care is prioritizing the relationship, and taking care of the future. Care is providing a sacred space where we can be ourselves. Caring for someone is as important as caring about future significant matters. Care is that one element of love, next to passion and commitment, which entails other dimensions such as respect, comprehension and sympathy. Care is often expressed through showing affection such as physical touch, and can be a barometer of relationships.
However it is only the consistency of everyday events that construct the texture of care and on a longer term could bring deeper social change. How subversive can non-heteronormative lifestyles be in everyday life? What norms do young LGBTQ generation want to use to describe themselves? Is personal life still private, and if so, to what extent? If sexuality is flexible, then who needs genders anymore? How does discrimination influence everyday life of LGBTQ people?
My subjective gaze followed the minority of LGBTQ people in Warsaw, who are still faced with problems of homophobia and exclusion. This project examines the queer identity whilst also questioning social norms in Polish society. The queer identities are explored through the depictions of intimate portraits and fragmentary scenes of the city. I consider the human body in comparison to the body of the city and nature. The photographs are materialized on sem-transparenl textile, such as veil, or posters and wallpapers. The research on the topic of visual self-representation is depicted in a magazine format and in a video piece. The magazine includes covers of Filo, the first magazine for gay men in Poland. In the video a performer touches her body in a slow motion sequence, expressing her rejection of the prevailing regime of social norms.. The exhibition space is permeated by female voices reading fragments of Caroline Emcke’s autobiography “How do we desire” (2012).

The work further evolved as LEZBY exhibition, predominantly photographic images that establish a dialogue about women, visibility, gender, performance/performativity, language and power, all framed within the notion of care—as tool, as an agent for radical social change.

In 2024 the images are going to be presented in the form of a book with bookeditor Fiorenza Pinna.

Thanks to :
Marta Bogdanska, Marta Ziolek,
Christina Scheib, Hanne König, Lydia Kähny, Anja Dorn
Anne Vortisch, Aleksander Knoppik , Sebastian Schäfer

Kathryn Zazenski, Karol Radziszewski