TITLE: Inner pain

The "Inner Pain" series is a visual essay on emotions that we lock deep inside ourselves, which over time become a trap. It is a series about a quiet, intimate suffering that we reveal to no one.

It touches upon the theme of an emotional armor, focusing on a painful paradox: the attempt to isolate oneself from the world and hide one's vulnerability often generates the deepest, internal suffering. It is a depiction of states that we experience in absolute solitude.

(Medium format 6x6 analog photography).

AUTHOR: Arek Akki (Poland)

The human body plays a significant role in my photography.
I am interested in themes such as bodily discomfort, tense relationships with the environment, memory and recollection, the search for anonymity, loneliness, and alienation. I work with monochromatic analogue techniques — medium format film and wet plate collodion.

akki.pl
Instagram: akki_monochrome


Latest exhibitions
In 2024–2025, his collodion works were presented in solo exhibitions:
2024 – Solitude, Alienation, Imprisonment – MBWA Gallery, Leszno
2025 – Memory, Body, Relations – CAL “Na Przedmieściu” Gallery, Wrocław
2025 – Depressions – Photography Gallery, Świdnica

Latest awards
B&W International Awards 2026, Analog category – 1st Prize
IPA Awards 2025, Analog/Film, Fine Art category – 1st Prize
Monovisions Awards 2025, Nudes category – Passivity (series), 3rd Place Award
ND Awards 2024, Analog/Film category – Unwanted Memories, 3rd Place and Bronze Award
ND Awards 2023, Nudes category – Morning After, 3rd Place and Bronze Award
ND Awards 2022, Nude category – Deadnames (series), 1st Place and Gold Star Award
Monochrome Awards 2022, Nudes category – Forest Girl, 1st Prize

He graduated from the University of the Arts in Poznań, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in 2000, specializing in pinhole photography.