Zula Rabikowska: On working with communities
In this episode, we talk with Zula Rabikowska on working with communities. She talks about the care and research she invests in projects involving vulnerable communities, before exploring the additional layers of care required when photographing her own family. She examines the complexity of her own multi-national identity and how it shines through in her work. Finally, she talks about her position as an educator and how she has helped students avoid the ethical pitfalls of the industry.
What does photography ethics mean to Zula?
“So many things. I think, for me, photography ethics means an ongoing process of negotiation with yourself but also with the topic or subject that you are documenting. So being informed, whether that’s through personal experience but also through factual or emotional understanding of the topic through other people or through reading or gathering information.” (33:00)
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Zula Rabikowska is a London-based Polish queer visual artist. Zula was born in Poland and grew up in the UK and her documentary practice is influenced by her own experience of migration. Zula draws a lot of her creative inspiration from her upbringing and heritage, and her work explores themes of displacement, gender identity and LGBTQI+ communities. Her photographs seek to offer a space for conversation and community building. Among others, Zula is a recipient of the Centre for British Photography Realisation Grant, Mead Fellowship, and Getty Images Award and her work has been published and exhibited internationally, including; the Guardian, the BJP, Times and the BBC. Zula also works as a writer and a photography lecturer at Kingston University in London.
You can see her work at https://zulara.co.uk/calvertjournal