TITLE: Pink doesn’t exist

‘Pink doesn’t exist’ is a story about a fight with depression. These works consist of overlaid photos which I have been taking of my daughter for many years and fragments of Wiktoria’s self-portraits which she painted whilst fighting with the illness. Her paintings from those days are horribly sad. A black and white deformed body, a face with dead eyes. The self-portraits started changing as the therapy progressed. Apparently, the colour pink doesn’t exist. It is only an interpretation from our brain. But it was that colour, just like hope, which very slowly started filling the canvas and the cold grey gradually started becoming warmer.
Although I spent many hours talking to Wiktoria, I still don’t fully understand how it is to have depression. But I do fully understand how it is to be the mother of a child who is fighting that illness.

AUTHOR: Iwona Germanek (Poland)

Graduated from Fotoedukacja in Katowice and AFA School of Photography in Wrocław. Member of the Society of Polish Photography Artists (ZPAF). Currently studying at the Silesian University of Opava, as well as teaching in MDK Łaziska Górne, where the Alternative Photography studio was created on her initiative. She led workshops in TIF Centre in Wrocław (collodion process) as well as in Basic Vocational School in Racibórz (collodion process, cyanotype). Participant of many exhibition, i.e. Festival of alternative and old photography techniques.