Weekend Portfolio: Agata Read - Frames of the Distaff Side
Writing and Photography by Agata Read
Photo Editing by Haley Winchell
About the Artist: Agata Read is an artist and researcher living in St. Leonards-on-Sea, UK. She has just completed her art practice-based PhD program on Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, Poland.
Her research interest includes the relationship between photography, feminism and thread as well as the process of intervening in the material structure of photography.
Agata was born in Gdansk (Poland), into a family with artistic traditions. In 2006, she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, obtaining a master's degree in interior design. Shortly thereafter, she moved to England, where she continued her studies at the University of Sussex. Before returning to photography, she worked with screen printing for many years.
In 2020, she qualified for the ShowOFF exhibition during Photomonth in Krakow. In 2021, she received an honorable mention in the LENSCRATCH competition "Artist Intervenes". Most recently she has been a finalist of Lensculture Art Photography Awards.
About the Project: Her work explores the relationship between photography, feminism and thread. She has been applying textile practices to the photographic process, by introducing the thread into the subject matter at a conceptual and compositional stage, as well as the final physical structure. She is interested in photographs as objects and by intervening with their structure she tries to gain a deeper material consciousness, which I strongly connect to craft.
The body of work, FRAMES ON THE DISTAFF SIDE, is treating the process of working with yarn as a feminist intervention in the structure of a photograph. She introduces the thread in the form of Sashiko embroidery, quilting and patching treating those techniques as a form of caring for the material and metaphorically for the subject of my photographs.
You can view more of Agata’s work on her Instagram.
