List of publications and exhibitions: Aleksandra Bankowicz
Born 1975, Warsaw, Poland
Filmmaker and Photographer Introduction
A graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Warsaw and the Department of Intellectual Property at the Faculty of Law, Jagiellonian University, in Cracow. Bankowicz lived in Algeria as a child and later as a young adult completed a film production internship in New York. For the next 15 years, she worked as a producer of commercial and documentary projects, in Warsaw. In 2016 she moved with her husband, three daughters and their dog to Thailand, 2020 - 2022 family lived in China, and since August 2024 Bankowicz moved to Doha in Qatar. Throughout her time in Asia, Bankowicz focused on documenting the lives of women in ethnic minorities, traveling to remote villages across the region. Her work concentrates on the female perspective, and apart from taking photographs, she always interviews her subjects, creating a unique approach to position of woman within those communities. Bio
From the age of 18, she was involved in film and TV production. In addition to producing TV advertisements and short documentaries, she has directed the documentary film Life is Not a Play, presented at domestic and international film festivals, and the short documentary Le Retour, featuring a French photographer working in China. Apart of short documentary forms she continuously directed commissioned commercial video projects, consequently pursuing documentary form. Alongside her professional production and directing career, she continued to develop her own unique photographic style and worked actively on personal projects. She was awarded an honorary prize in the "Free and Independent Woman" photo competition by Newsweek magazine for her series Awaiting, which featured the artist’s childbirth of her third daughter. She has had number of publications in local magazines. Her photo story of the riots in Istanbul, along with the reportage, was published by the acclaimed cultural magazine Rita Baum. A solo exhibition, Lego - The Real Land, was held at the gallery Lokalna, and the photo series Awaiting was part of a group exhibition at the gallery Fabryka Trzciny. Features and Publications
A photograph documenting life under lockdown was chosen for a competition gallery by LensCulture’s editors in 2020. Her work on womanhood was featured on Instagram by Women Share Culture initiative. in April 2022 the photo series Paradise Lost, along with an article about social crisis in Thailand during Covid, was published in Docu, a magazine published in Finland. A series of portraits of the city of Shanghai was published along with an article by Andrea Hunka in the Brazilian monthly magazine Mensch. Exhibitions
The long-term project BIKE was exhibited in May 2019 at the Museum of Asia and Pacific in Warsaw. The April 2020 exhibition of the series BEACH/fading at Ilford Gallery in Bangkok was canceled due to Covid restrictions. November 2021, Bankowicz held a solo show in Lady Sajgon in Shanghai with the series Portrait of Womanhood. The show featured 15 portraits of girls and women from ethnic minorities. In October 2022, she showcased a photo reportage from the Pride Parade titled People Should Be Free and Beautiful in Bangkok in gallery PIN31. In April 2023, her photo from Paradise Lost series was a part of a group exhibition, The Street, at the Glasgow Gallery of Photography. In September 2024 she held a solo show Women I talk to at Alchemy Experiment in Glasgow featuring 13 conscientiously selected portraits of women - role models and inspirations, from different ethnic groups across Asia. Also in September The portrait of Miao lady from Hunan province in China was exhibited along the work of 70 others photographers documenting ethnic minorities from the entire world as a part of Atlas of Humanity project, the exhibition took place in a gallery Fondazione Luciana Matalon in Milan.