About this Event
Join us at Leica Gallery Chicago for a presentation by visual artist, Marzena Abrahamik.
Return is a visual research project in which Marzena Abrahamik explores how Polish diasporic identity continues to reimagine itself and negotiate the racial landscape of the United States. The project radiates outward from portraits and stories of immigration within Chicago’s Polish communities—long considered the heart of the Polish diaspora in the U.S. and often called “New Poland”—connecting them to portraits and narratives of return migration throughout various parts of Poland. It further expands into collections of photographs from Abrahamik’s family albums, 4×5 landscape photographs of iconic “must-visit” places in Poland, images of eagles, storks, swans, and wolves, and archival materials. Abrahamik’s personal experiences and observations throughout the journey toward American citizenship inform the project. Through reflections on family migration history, memorabilia, interpersonal and transnational communications, and familial connections to Chicago’s Polish community—where her mother arrived in 1983 and became a prominent figure—Abrahamik continues to challenge conventional notions of what it means to be a model citizen.
feeding a swan to a wolf is a body of work created by Rager (Marzena Abrahamik and Rebecca Kressley) between 2024 to the present. The works share an interest in how repetition, creation and suspension can reflect impulses to make desire become recognisable.
Rager creates art collaboratively; sometimes making works together, and sometimes making works individually that contribute to the collaborative body. Their work spans a variety of mediums with a focus on photography, sound and video.
Marzena Abrahamik (b. Poland, raised in Greece) is a visual artist, driven by photography’s ability to change our visual sensibility. She is visually inspired by personal histories, attachments to unachievable and necessary-for-survival fantasies, to further investigate communal formations and transformations. Abrahamik works through photographic series where images are anchored in historical events with formal interests in lighting, color and gesture that connect individual images into unimaginable bodies of work. Abrahamik’s approach to structuring and conceptualizing has been defined by her immigration history. Recent exhibitions include the Chicago Cultural Center, Film School In Lodz, Johalla Projects, Heaven Gallery, Basket Shop, Weinberg/Newton Gallery, Soccer Club Club, and Aperture. Abrahamik is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, Fulbright Scholar Award, Kosciuszko Foundation Graduate Studies and Research Scholarship Program, and IAS Artist Project Grant. Her work is included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Photography and Haas Library.
Rebecca Kressley (b. USA) is an artist based in Amsterdam. Her work ranges in medium with sound as a continuum throughout. To some extent, she makes art as a response to a driving curiosity about relations between excess, intractability, sexuality and creativity.
This presentation is part of Leica Chicago's continued program, On Photography, a speaker series highlighting the voices of women working in photography. Featuring artists, curators, publishers, gallerists, educators, and other professionals, the series celebrates the breadth of talent and leadership women bring to the medium. Through personal stories, presentations, and professional insights, each speaker will offer a unique perspective on photography's history, its role in contemporary culture, and its future.
Event venue & nearby stays
Leica Gallery, Chicago, United States
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