Weekend Portfolio: Sandra Mickiewicz
Images and Text by Sandra Mickiewicz
As the Gypsy and Travellers community is a small minority in the hugely diverse British society, my intention was to portray them as sympathetic and sociable people as opposed to the typical stereotypes. I hope this project will contribute to changing the dominant point of view and our thinking about Gypsies and Travellers. Most importantly, I want the audience to realise that the subjects I photograph are valuable members of society. This body of work is still in progress and my aim is to capture the resolute, spirited nature of the people I have met and the pride they rightly feel towards their ancestry. I’ve always been interested in the community as I find their lifestyle very interesting. I am really inspired by their culture, clothes they wear and their faces. To me these people stand out from the crowd, even in our everyday life. Because of their backgrounds and “typical ste- reotypes”, most Gypsies and Travellers had to face the racism and discrimination towards their culture and beliefs. Most of them are forced to hide their identity in order to attain employment or send their children to school. In this project, I want to explore their life tra- ditions, and other aspects in their culture.
Artist statement
Sandra Mickiewicz is a Polish documentary and portrait photographer who lives and works in London. In 2007, her family immigrated to the United Kingdom, where she started to develop her skills in painting and drawing. She discovered photography at the age of 15. In 2018, Sandra graduated from Middlesex University in London where she studied photography.
Since then, she has used her camera as a tool to communicate with the world. She is drawn into very ordinary and conventional moments in our everyday life, which she documents by exploring portraiture and landscape photography. Sandra mainly works with the communities, as she is really inspired by people and their stories. She loves to work on personal projects which allows her to photograph whatever she wants, starting from acrobats in the small circuses to larger communities and strangers which she finds difficult and really challenging to photograph.
Sandra is fascinated about analogue photography. She mainly shoots on medium format camera and prints her own work in the darkroom. She is influenced by photographers like Alec Soth, Jamie Hawkesworth, Diane Arbus and Marry Ellen Mark.
To view more information about Sandra’s work, visit her website or instagram.
