CuratorSpace Artist Bursary #20: Alan Gignoux

Alan Gignoux is an award-winning documentary photographer and founder of Gignoux Photos, which produces documentary photography and film projects focusing on socio-political and environmental issues around the world.

"Poland, has the dirtiest air in Europe and has the single city with Europe’s highest rate of pollution, Katowice. Sunny days are a rarity that brings respiratory illnesses to children and old people. 50% of this air pollution is from residential heating that burns low-quality, high sulfur, producing dangerous carcinogens, such as benzopyrene.

The Polish government is not pushing for the phase out of coal, in fact quite the contrary. The Government is very isolated in its defence of coal. It's the only EU country not to agree to a domestic target of climate neutrality by 2050, a stance that could cost it some EU funding aimed at helping smooth the transition away from a carbon-intensive economy.

This project aims to focus on Poland as an extension of our existing body of work, 'Bruised Lands, which feature images of environmental issues from northern Canada, Appalachia in the USA, Russia’s Urals, and Germany’s coal industry. Chloe Juno and I plan to photograph the landscape of the coal mining regions of Bogdanka (near the Ukrainian border) Kapanenzki and Zakzerne, using Sala as a base to branch out to document other parts of the country. Upon our return, we will produce a zine and social media campaign using the images to bring awareness to this issue."

Image credit: Alan Gignoux and Chloe Juno, Monuments, Photograph.

Find out more and purchase the book at https://gignouxphotos.com/product/monuments.

Apply for the CuratorSpace Artist Bursary at https://bursary.curatorspace.com.
 

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