9 Gates of No Return
Agata Grzybowska
BLOW UP PRESS
Polish & English
Text by Stefano De Luigi
Hardcover
200 pages
327x240mm
2017
ISBN 9788393991754
Grzybowska presents 9 persons who for various reasons and life choices have decided to give up their lives in the city and settle in the woods of the Bieszczady Mountains, south-eastern Poland. Bieszczady, which for many are a symbol of freedom and direct, tangible contact with nature, became a trap for them, which they cannot get out from. They live far away from other people, often without electricity and running water, in the huts they built themselves. Why did they make such decisions? What was driving them? What did they run away from? What did they want to achieve in this way? What the loneliness and melancholy is for them? These are just some of the questions that Grzybowska is trying to answer with 9 Gates of No Return.
About the Artist
Agata Grzybowska (b. 1984) is a photojournalist based in Warsaw. She graduated from the Direction of Photography at the Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz. Her works have been nominated for many prestigious awards, including the Grand Press Photo (2014) and Amnesty International (2013). Grzybowska travels across the world depicting people in difficult, often life-threatening situations. She has worked in Syria, Uganda, India, Egypt, Romania, and Ukraine. While working, her principle is to get as close as possible to the human being in the centre of the story.
agatagrzybowska.com
About the Publisher
Established in 2012, BLOW UP PRESS is a boutique style publishing house focused on contemporary photography, known for such publications as doc! photo magazine (quarterly ‘mook’ dedicated to contemporary documentary photography) and DEBUTS (yearly publication presenting the most talented emerging photographers). BUP also publishes monographs by emerging as well as already established photographers.
docphotomagazine.com
