De Middel investigates photography’s ambiguous relationship to truth. Blending documentary and conceptual photographic practices, she plays with reconstructions and archetypes to build a more layered understanding of the subjects she approaches. Working from the premise that mass media is reducing our real understanding of the world we live in, De Middel responds to an urgency to re-imagine tired aesthetic tropes and the insertion of opinion in place of facts.
De Middel’s impulse toward an unconventional angle developed after a 10-year career as a photojournalist. She moved away from straight documentary and produced the acclaimed series, The Afronauts (2012). This explored the history of a failed space program in Zambia in the 1960s through staged re-enactments of obscure narratives, challenging the traditional depiction of the African continent.
De Middel’s project Gentlemen’s Club, which began in Rio de Janeiro in 2015 and expanded to every continent around the globe, bar Australasia, focuses on prostitution’s less documented side: the male clients. Her intimate portraits subvert the paradigms of the status quo to provide new sources of insight and understanding.
Ania Nałęcka-Milach is an award-winning photo book designer. Her interdisciplinary experience ranges from visual arts to printmaking, and advertising (senior art director and head of design).
In her design philosophy and method, book form conveys and extends visual storytelling. Designing a photo book is far more a creation of experience for viewer-reader than creating an object itself.
She has been working with photographers and institutions from all over the world and total project count is approaching 100 books.
