The Department of Photography welcomed Joanna Piotrowska for a guest mentorship and workshop at FAMU from November 5 to 9, 2025.

Joanna Piotrowska is a Polish artist based in London whose practice spans photography, performance, and film. Her work examines the human condition through performative gestures and the construction of layered ‘social landscapes.’ Drawing on sources such as family archives, self-defence manuals, and psychotherapeutic frameworks, Piotrowska explores the intricate dynamics of power, vulnerability, and control in the realm of everyday behavior. The artist reveals moments of care as well as hierarchies of power, anxieties, and imposed conventions that play out in the domestic sphere.

Thematically connected with the MgA Artistic Research course, the workshop for students of Department of Photography led by Joanna Piotrowska and supported by Peter Watkins explored the body as a site of performativity, collectivity, and activation. Through a practical, hands-on workshop exploring photography, staging, and embodied experimentation, students investigated how the body can be used as both subject and medium within a wider artistic research theme of The Body Politic. The workshop continued with two mentorship days at FAMU, offered opportunities for individual consultations, group reflection, and feedback.

Joanna Piotrowska delivered a lecture as part of the FAMU Guest Lecture Series. All staff and students are warmly invited to attend.