Maria Dabrowski 2.51

MARIA DABROWSKI
b. 1988, Zwolle (NL)

Maria Dabrowski has a MA in Fine Arts, Photography at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, Belgium and a BA in Photography at University of the Arts Utrecht, The Netherlands.

The origin of Maria Dabrowski’s work can be traced back to documentary photography. Her long-term projects, which portray considerable involvement, are often represented in photo-installations and in book form.

Her research and photographic work in which (cultural) identity serves as a foundation, result into personal works in which feelings of displacement often are strong.

In Memed, “Every day is a different day” (2009) she attempts to step in the shoes of Memed, a refugee from Iran. For fifteen years, he led an illegal life in Utrecht. The photography and personal letter to memed included in the bookwork, focus on the elusiveness of his existence and constricting way of living.

In Konik (2010) she questions the efforts to restore nature to its 'wild' original state whereby offspring of Konik horses were brought back from Poland to the Netherlands. Ironically, during this striving to a self-reliant ecosystem, these 'wild' horses had to meet strict visual and behavioural requirements. If they don’t, they end up in the slaughterhouse.
Maria approached this subject on purpose in a visually utopian way; the animal as a part of ‘free’ nature. Contrasting to this, she used the microchips, DNA materials and other information about the horses.

For her recent project Odsłonić (2015) She further explores her series Back Home(2013) in which she started to investigate her personal family history and roots in the Netherlands, Poland and Ukraine.