Agnieszka Sosnowska

Agnieszka Sosnowska “In my Backyard” I immigrated to Iceland ten years ago. I met an Icelander while on a three day vacation to Reykjavik. We stayed in touch and took a chance on one another. Three years later we were married. This path in life was nothing I had planned or expected. I grew up and was educated in Boston, Massachusetts, an urban environment. It had always been a dream of mine to have a thoughtful connection with the land. Our home is a farm in East Iceland. I photograph myself, students from the school where I teach, family and friends. The inclusion of myself into these places represents a connectedness to a place. Connectedness is also thematic. I was born in Poland, raised in the U.S, and now have a farm in East Iceland. Immigration has a way of arousing a search for belonging and an image or story can attach one to a place. The affects of a cross-culture life inspires the characters that I create. Here in Iceland—a culture imbedded by ancient sagas, and myths of elves that live inside rocks—there speaks many voices that come to life. My adult experiences have informed my sensibility to expose the hidden world of the stories my mind nurtures. As a woman, I interpret these cultural stories in a primal and sensual way. To embody what is sometimes ordinary, sometimes purely feminine, and sometimes supernatural is to seek a way to take these private images in my mind pubic. I use a 4X5 view camera to create these images. From beneath my dark cloth, I compose the edges of a story that reveals my inclusion to a place. My photographs are the language that connects me to truths deep within myself. In that split of a second when the lens shutter clicks, fantasy and reality become one and I ' belong' to the moment.