HALL OF THE MIKOŁAJ REJ EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY, 12 Modrzewskiego Street, Bielsko-Biała
12 October 2025 (Sunday, 9:30 AM – 7:00 PM)
Entry to the Authors’ Marathon requires a TICKET. The schedule of meetings is subject to change.
2ND ROUND OF DIAS SHOW – 9:30 AM
IREN MOROZ
UKRAINE
meeting at 10:00 AM
Visual philosopher, artist, and explorer of the boundaries of human experience.
Through photography, text, and conceptual imagery, Iren Moroz addresses pressing social themes such as inequality, domestic violence, self-destruction, and feminism. Her work is not merely a form of artistic expression — it is a precise anatomy of trauma and resistance.
She views the world as a labyrinth of broken systems and fractured lives. Within this chaos, she searches for a point of breakthrough — intimate, raw, painful, yet carrying the possibility of healing.
Moroz translates these experiences into a visual language of photography and graphic expression, creating spaces where images become acts of healing and signposts toward a deeper understanding of both the self and the world.
INGMAR BJÖRN NOLTING
GERMANY
meeting at 11:00 AM
Born in 1995, lives and works as a freelance photographer in Leipzig, Germany. He holds a Master’s Degree in Photography from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Dortmund. He is a member of Laif Agency, the founding member of DOCKS collective and a regular contributor to The New York Times. In his recents works, Ingmar condenses the moods and conditions of German society. With his restrained, stage-like images, he describes and explores the complex interconnections of environment, politics, and social dynamics. Ingmar’s work has been awarded and exhibited internationally.
ALAIN SCHROEDER
BELGIUM
meeting at 12:00 PM
meeting will be translated into Polish sign language
A photojournalist working in the industry for over four decades. First as a sports photographer in the 1980s, then shooting books and editorial pieces in art and human stories.
In 2013, he uprooted his life, trading-in his shares in Reporters, to pursue life on the road with a camera. He now travels the world shooting stories focusing on social issues and people. «I am not a single shot photographer. I think in series,» he says, adding, «I strive to tell a story in 10-15 pictures, capturing the essence of an instant with a sense of light and framing.»
He has won many international awards including PX3, IPA, MIFA, BIFA, PDN, Nikon Japan, Nikon Belgium, Days Japan, and specifically; 9 TPOTY, 5 Trieste Photo Awards, 2 The Fence, 2 LensCulture, 2 Felix Schoeller, 4 Istanbul Photo Awards, 10 Siena, 7 POYI, and 3 World Press Photo, and many others.
SARA SOBOL
DENMARK / ITALY
meeting at 1:00 PM
I started photographing as a teenager, as a way to find myself in a very conservatory society, Italy. Art gave me the space to find myself, ask myself questions about our shared humanity and the nature of our feelings. When I was 19 I moved out my mentally ill mother’s apartment and I moved to Copenhagen and attended Fatamorgana, school of art and documentary photography. I started working at the same time as a studio assistant and darkroom printer for Jacob Aue Sobol. At the end of my studies I travelled for 4 months in Russia. Today, this journey is about to become a book – Tell My Love Now.
Afterwards I worked for the New York office at Magnum Photos, and raised enough funding to produce the next project in Mexico, where I travelled for 10 months.
I returned to Denmark and became a mother of 2. Alongside, I am the art director for my husband, Jacob Aue Sobol. In 2024, I published Tell My Love Now, which was short listed in different international awards.
We together produce new work and raise our children on a small island, southern of Denmark.
IAN WELDON
ENGLAND
meeting at 2:00 PM
The author works as a documentary photographer in the North of England predominantly photographing weddings, whilst also working on long term personal projects and commercial assignments. With only a brief period of studying photography at a local college, Ian is primarily self- taught.
He lectured on photography history at the Sunderland Visual and Performing Arts College and his long term project, I Am Not A Wedding Photographer, was exhibited at the Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol, in 2019 and was the first exhibition of wedding photography in a fine art context, ever. He was featured worldwide in major publications including, The Guardian, The British Journal of Photography, Vice, Creative Review, BBC World News and CNN to name but a few.
A book of the work has been co-published by RRB Photo Books and The Martin Parr Foundation.
BREAK 2:45 PM – 3:00 PM
VLADIMIR BIRGUS & MICHAŁ SZALAST
Institute of Creative Photography of the Silesian University in Opava
meeting at 3:00 PM
Vladimír Birgus is a photographer, curator, photography historian, professor, and head of the Institute of Creative Photography at the Silesian University in Opava. His photographs have been presented in 85 solo exhibitions and are included in numerous collections, including the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, the Museum of Art in Olomouc, the Moravian Gallery in Brno, the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava, the Silesian Museum in Katowice, the National Library and the European House of Photography in Paris, the Réattu Museum in Arles, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tokyo Museum of Photographic Art, the Yokohama Museum of Art, among others.
He is the author and co-author of 68 books, including Tschechoslowakische Fotografie der Gegenwart (Cologne and Heidelberg, 1990), Czech Photographic Avant-Garde 1918–1948 (Prague and Stuttgart, 1999; Cambridge/Mass. and London, 2002), František Drtikol (Prague, 2000), Jaroslav Rössler – Czech Avant-Garde Photographer (Cambridge/Mass. and London, 2003), Czech Photography of the 20th Century (Prague, 2010), At First Glance: A Selection of Czech Photography of the 20th and 21st Century (Olomouc and Opole, 2016), Czech Photography in Dates 1839–2019 (Prague, 2021), and Michał Szalast: Albíni/Albinos/Albinosi (Ostrava, 2023).
He has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions in many museums and galleries, such as Contemporary Beauty: Czech Photographic Avant-Garde 1918–1948 (Barcelona, Paris, Lausanne, Prague, and Munich, 1998–1999), Nude in Czech Photography (Prague, Olomouc, Moscow, Paris, Aachen, Poznań, Wrocław, Bratislava, Athens, Warsaw, 2000–2009), Czech Photography of the 20th Century (Prague, 2005; Bonn, 2009), The Intimate World of Josef Sudek (Paris and Ottawa, 2016–2017), and Avant-Garde Photographer Jaromír Funke (Prague, Paris, Frankfurt am Main, and Olomouc, 2017–2018).
Monographs include: Tomáš Pospěch: Vladimír Birgus. Cosi nevyslovitelného / Something Uspeakable (KANT, Prague, 2003); Štěpánka Bieleszová: Vladimír Birgus. Photographs 1972–2014 (Museum of Art in Olomouc and KANT, Prague, 2014); Danuta Kowalik-Dura, Adam Mazur: Vladimír Birgus. Photographs 1972–2017 (Silesian Museum, Katowice, 2017); Jiří Siostrzonek: Vladimír Birgus. So Much, So Little. Photographs from the Years When So Much Was Demanded and So Little Was Allowed (KANT, Prague, 2019).
Michał Szalast is a documentary photographer and documentary filmmaker, born in and inseparably connected to Upper Silesia.
He is a lecturer at the Institute of Creative Photography at the Silesian University in Opava. He studied history at the University of Silesia in Katowice and has worked as a photojournalist, filmmaker, writer, educator, and curator. Some of the stories he has captured through his camera include the Olympic Games in Beijing, albinos at Lake Victoria, religious rituals in Andalusia, and the commercial survival strategies of the Maasai. He is a winner of press photography competitions (BZ WBK Press Photo, Silesian Press Photo) and a member of the Polish Association of Art Photographers.
DAMIAN LEMAŃSKI
POLAND
meeting at 4:00 PM
Born in 1985. He lives in Warsaw. His work focuses on people and their place in the contemporary world. He often addresses topics that are overlooked by mainstream media but resonate deeply with his sensitivity and compassionate perspective. The everyday life of small communities is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him. Through his photography, he examines the moral condition of people, which he understands primarily as treating each other well and taking responsibility for the community and the world. In his work, he draws on his empathy and attentiveness, engaging deeply with his subjects and building close relationships with them. By being sincere in his intentions and open in communication, he aims to create an environment in which those he photographs feel safe and comfortable. He studied photography at the European Academy of Photography (under Dr. Izabela Jaroszewska) and attended workshops in Poland, Hungary, and the United States. He comes from Korsze, a small town in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. Although he currently lives and works in Warsaw, he continues to pursue personal photographic projects in his hometown region.
TOMASZ LIBOSKA
POLAND
meeting at 5:00 PM
Born in 1976 in Cieszyn. Photographer and documentarian. He graduated from the Institute of Creative Photography at the Silesian University in Opava (Czech Republic) and studied Ethnology at the University of Silesia in Katowice.
He is the author of photographic publications: Cut it Short (published by Kehrer Verlag, 2021, co-authored with Michał Solarski) and Retreat (published by Pix House, 2018).He has participated in numerous exhibitions and photography festivals both in Poland and abroad, showcasing his work at events such as Photomonth in Krakow, Hereford Photography Festival, New York Photo Festival, Athens Photo Festival, and Belfast Photo Festival.
KAMIL KAK
POLAND
meeting at 6:00 PM
Kamil Kak is a multidisciplinary artist working across printmaking, video, textiles, video performance, glass, and ceramics. Kak’s work explores queer liberation, migration, and the fragility of recent historical narratives through object and prop making, exaggeration, and bittersweet humor. Their practice reflects on collective futures within today’s ecopolitical context.
Kak is a graduate of the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo, the Stockholm University of the Arts, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. Recent exhibitions, residencies, and performances include KUBE (Ålesund), RAM galleri, Norske Grafikere (Oslo), ARTICA Svalbard, Pilchuck Glass School (WA, USA), Galleri F15 (Moss), Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, Narracje Art Festival (Gdańsk) and the Gdańsk Biennial of Art.
