“My approach is deeply rooted in craft-based photography and sensory immersion. I use analogue processes, embracing old techniques that honour the alchemy of image-making: I hand-craft images with silver on glass plates and pigments distilled from flowers, herbs and other organic materials. This slow, tactile process keeps me connected to the essence of rituals that I portray, infusing the work with the natural ingredients of the tradition. By blending such ancestral techniques I ensure the resulting images are not just documentation but artifacts of the traditions themselves. I work with historic processes as my tools: wet collodion, chlorophyll printing on leaves. I pour plates in a portable darkroom using ether, silver and light; build pigment layers by hand; print sunlight into plants so imagery merges with the natural world.”
Magda Kuca (b. 1993, Skarzysko-Kamienna, Poland)
Magda Kuca is a Polish visual artist and photographer based in London. She explores the cyclical nature of rituals and traditions through portraiture and visual storytelling. Specialising in historical photographic techniques her work reflects the link between folklore, individual memory and shared ancestry. Her projects draw on personal experience, pagan traditions and Slavic culture in an ongoing investigation into the connection between humans and nature. Kuca’s work has been shown worldwide with exhibitions including Aperture Gallery (US) and Photo Vogue (Italy), receiving international recognition at the Vintage Photo Festival in Bydgoszcz (Poland) and Circulation(s) European Young Photography Festival, Paris (France), and collaborations ranging from cultural institutions like the British Museum and Kew Gardens in London to brands like Macallan whisky and Meta. Her work is held in private and public collections, including the Brent Museum & Archives (UK) and the Centre for Photographic Conservation (UK).
Magda Kuca holds an MA in Photography from University of Arts London (2018) and a BA in Photography from University of Arts in Poznan, Poland (2015).
Exhibitions
SOLO
2022
• Family Tales, Vintage Photography Festival Grand Prix exhibition, Bydgoszcz, PL
2017
• PARC Portraits and The Grandmothers, Photography and Archive Research Centre, London, UK
2016
• Grandmothers, Festival Circulations, Paris, FR
2013
• Second Life of Figures, Photo Festival Labirynt, Słubice-Frankfurt, PL,DE
COLLECTIVE (SELECTED)
2024
• Royal Photographic Society 165th
International Photography Exhibition, Bristol, UK
• Symbiosis, Hundred Years Gallery, London, UK
2023
• Porous Light, Espacio Gallery, London, UK
2021
• Reframing History, Vogue Italia, Base Milano, IT
• VISAGE(S) D’EUROPE, Square de la Tour Saint-Jacques, Institut Polonais Paris, Paris, FR
• Home, Shutterhub & Gallery At Home, Llancayo, Wales, UK
2019
• LensCulture Art Photography Awards 2018 Finalists Exhibition, Aperture Gallery, New York, US
• Pracownia Otwartej Interpretacji sztuki UAP, BWA Pila, PL
2018
• Different Worlds 2018 competition finalists exhibition, Photon Gallery, Ljubljana, SL
• University of Arts London graduation show, Bargehouse, London, UK
• Islington Summer Salon 2018, Islington Arts Factory, London, UK
• Trzy Pracownie, BWA Jelenia Góra, PL
2017
• Mirrors and Windows, University of Arts London- High Holborn, UK
• INTER-przestrzenie, Galeria u Jezuitów, Poznan, PL
2016
• Topór, (collective exhibition UAP students), Kolektyw 1a, Poznań,PL
2015
• Uwagi o sztuce:Wystawa Prac Pracowni Twórczej Interpretacji Sztuki, Galeria Profil, Poznań, PL
• What’s old is new again: Alternative Photographic Processes, 136 ½ Gallery, Manchester, US
• Alternative Processes, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, US
• Language of Memory, PhotoVisa Festival, Krasnodar, RU
• Naked Eye - stereophotography Fotoplastikon Arsenał Gallery ,Photographic Biennale 2015, Poznań, PL
• Wystawa Prac Pracowni Twórczej Interpretacji Sztuki, Galeria Sztuki Wozownia, Toruń, PL
2013
• Uniwersity of Arts Poznan studen exhibition Fotofestiwal 2013 To coś, Galeria FF, Łódź, PL
Awards
Centre for British Photography Project Grant 2025
Siobhan Coward Foundation Grant for analogue photography 2019-2021
Laurent of Debuts edition 2016 contemporary polish photography Doc! Photomagazine+ book launching
Artscom Scholarship in 2016, UAL, London
2nd place in category People, Self-portrait International Photography Awards IPA 2015
COLLABORATIONS
British Museum
University of Arts London
PhotoVogue/Vogue Italy
Institut Polonais Paris (Polish Institute in Paris)
Kew Gardens
Photography and Archive Research Centre, London
Meta (Facebook)
The Macallan (whisky)
BBC
PUBLICATIONS
Black and White Magazine(US), Black+White Magazine (UK), China Life Magazine(CH), LensCulture, The Protagonist Magazine, GUPmagazine, Gente Di Photographia(IT), Wysokie Obscasy(PL), Breathe(UK)