TITLE: The gag

“The Gag” is a series of portraits presenting various forms of discrimination and violence: racism, psychological abuse, mental illness, hate speech, and self-censorship. People who experience this type of violence are most often unheard, unnoticed, and overlooked in their experiences. That is why I decided to use a repetitive element of covering the characters’ mouths in various ways — a symbolic gag.

The photographs were taken with a 6x7 cm medium-format camera on Ilford HP5 black-and-white negative film. I made prints on self-prepared 30x40 cm photosensitive material — the presented image is a scan of those prints. The project is still in the process.

AUTHOR: Kacper Bartczak (Poland)

Kacper Bartczak – a graduate of the Film School in Łódź, Poland, the School of Photographic Arts in Warsaw, and the Warsaw Film School. From 2010 to 2021, he was an assistant in the photography fundamentals studio at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and from 2023 to 2024, he taught photography at the WSF High School. Co-founder and board member of Grain Films, where he primarily leads projects related to photography and education. Professionally, he is a portrait photographer; personally, he is passionate about nature photography and silver-based techniques. Based in Warsaw, Poland.