In Residence at Sirius: Zorka Project

For the month of November Sirius Arts Centre is pleased to welcome ZORKA PROJECT from Poland to our Artist in Residency Programme. This residency is a cooperation between Sirius and the Month of Photography Festival in Krakow, Poland. While in residence the artists will be working on a new body of work that focuses on Polish people working and living in Ireland.

Zorka Project are Monika Bereżecka and Urzula Jablonska (Urzula is standing in for Monica Redzisz who is normally the other half of Zorka Project but is busy about to have a new baby).

Redzisz and Bereżecka met while studying at the department of photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań. In 2000 they set up a photography group under the name of "Zorka Project". Since then, they have been working as a team, taking photographs and writing press articles together. In their cycles of portraits, so far, they have shown: Warsaw female tram drivers, nuns, bodybuilders, refugees, drag queens and homeless mothers with children.

Their works has been published in Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Życie Warszawy, Polityka, Przekrój, Playboy, City Magazine, Aktivist and in photography magazines such as Pozytyw, Fototapeta, Foto, Biuletyn Fotograficzny, as well as in various womens' magazines.

In 2003, during "Month of Photography" in Cracow, they exhibited a cycle featuring female nudes titled "Laski" ("Babes"). The following year they displayed "Mocarze" ("Bodybuilders"), which is a cycle of portraits of Polish strongmen and women. In 2004 Zorka Project were granted an artistic scholarship for young artists by the Polish Ministry for Culture.

Zorka Project were also exhibited at Sirius Arts Centre and Cork Institute of Technology in 2007 as part of "Teraz Malopolska" a group exhibition of contemporary Polish photography. We hope that a future exhibition can be curated for exhibition at Sirius in 2010 from the work they are creating here.

Jablonska and Bereżecka live and work in Warsaw, Poland.