Short bio
Born in a small town in southern Poland, Radek Kozak is a photographer at large whose work borders on the classic documentary and street photography. His main area of focus revolves mostly around long term essay-based projects and small narratives. In his photographic process Radek is interested in various topics among which are intersections of photography, literature and memory, as well as the notions of identity and belonging, especially in regard to relations between people and places.
In 2015 he published his first book Cuore — a monographic essay on Sicilian Easter rites that has spanned his five years of travel and documentary work on the island. His work has been issued in various periodicals and shown at individual as well as group exhibitions in Poland and abroad. In his spare time he walks the streets in hope of catching so called reality of life that we presently live as humans. Currently he is based in Warsaw.
Radek studied Hermeneutics of Photography at the University of Warsaw, as well as Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy & Sociology at the same university. He is also a graduate at Cracow University of Technology from which he obtained his MSc degree and recent participant of ILC course at MoMA Department of Photography, NYC. Beyond everything he’s an ardent wanderer and a poet. He was nominated in two major nationwide poetic contests: “Połów” in 2016, awarded by Literary Bureau — founder and organizer of the oldest poetic festival in Poland, in 2017 for the “Large Format” award for sheet of poetry titled “The Lemniscate of Hand”. He was also a finalist of Różewicz Open Festival (2018).
In the year 2023 he received 44th Grand Prix of Halina Poświatowska’s award - the oldest Polish poetry laurel.
Few words
I can’t put my finger on when and how my interest in photography exactly came about but i’ve been perplexed with human condition, or simply people and the way we all live our standard fares from as far as i can remember. I have been especially fascinated with public sphere where i practice my photography almost daily and where, when given time, you will most likely find me. I consider my own camera work a sort of personal meditation as i am peripatetic by nature. Photographing life as it unfolds on the streets gives me not only aesthetic pleasure and visual stimuli to which all photographers are sensitive to but more significantly an always current sociological insight into so-called everyday life. If there is only one thing i could say i’m after in my photography it would be humanity. Big word, but contrary to common believe i most often find it, time and time again, in seemingly mundane situations and moments. Moments that for the most part are just insignificant to passers-by. Those may be dramatic, poignant, humorous or just odd - but frozen in a frame they suddenly reveal other things that we haven’t expected to see. I am constantly in awe how many of those hidden meanings reality can transmit onto photographic image. If i could have any hope for my pictures it would be to shed a small light on those genuine little pieces of life we lead by making as honest photograph as possible.