Rafał Milach

Rafał Milach (born 1978) is a Polish visual artist and photographer. His work is about the transformation taking place in the former Eastern Bloc, for which he undertakes long-term projects. He is an associate member of Magnum Photos and lectures in photography at the Institute of Creative Photography (ITF), Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic.

Milach's books include ''7 Rooms'' (2011), ''In the Car with R'' (2012), ''Black Sea of Concrete'' (2013), ''The Winners'' (2014) and ''The First March of Gentlemen'' (2017). He is a co-founder of the Sputnik Photos collective.

In 2008, he won a World Press Photo award. In 2011, ''7 Rooms'' won the Pictures of the Year International Best Photography Book Award. In 2017, his exhibition ''Refusal'' was a finalist for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. In 2023, he was awarded the Dr. Erich Salomon Award

Life and work

Milach was born in 1978 in Gliwice, Poland. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice in 2003 and the Institute of Creative Photography (ITF), Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic.

With ten other Central Eastern European photographers, he co-founded Sputnik Photos, a collective documenting transition in post-Soviet states.

For his first book, ''7 Rooms'' (2011), Milach accompanied and photographed seven young people for several years living in the Russian cities of Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Krasnoyarsk.

''In the Car with R'' (2012) was made on a 10-day road trip, driving 1450 kilometres around Iceland's circular Route 1. Milach made photographs and his local guide, the writer , made diary entries.

''Black Sea of Concrete'' (2013) is about the Ukrainian Black Sea coast, about its people, of whom he made portraits, and the abundant Soviet-era geometric blocks strewn along the coastline.

Milach spent two years in Belarus from 2011 exploring its dire economic and political situation. Belarus is "a country caught between the ultra-traditional values of an older Soviet era and the viral influence of western popular culture." Milach was interested in the clean, tidy glamorous facade maintained by the state. His book ''The Winners'' (2014), portraits of winners of various "Best of Belarus" state and local contests promoted by the government, is a typology of state propaganda. It depicts mostly people, but also anonymous interiors that had won awards. The obscure official prizes are intended to foster national pride but to an outside audience might appear tragicomic. Milach travelled around the country working in the role of "an old-fashioned propaganda photographer". He was guided by the authorities as to who, where and how to photograph, a process which only improved his revealing the ideology of the state. Milach has said "the winners are everywhere, but the winnings are not for the winners – they are for the system", "the state is not interested in individuals, only in mass control."

''The First March of Gentlemen'' (2017) was made on a 2016 residency at Kolekcja Września to make work about life in Września. The town is synonymous with the Września children strike, the protests of Polish children and their parents against Germanization that occurred between 1901 and 1904. In 2016, there were many demonstrations by Citizens of Poland, a civic movement engaged in pro-democracy and anti-fascist actions, opposed to the political changes brought about by the government led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party. Milach's book of collages mixes illustrations of the children strike with characters that lived in Września during the communist era in the 1950s and 1960s taken by local amateur photographer Ryszard Szczepaniak. This "delineates a fictitious narrative that can be read as a metaphor, commenting on the social and political tensions of the present day."

Milach became a nominee member of Magnum Photos in 2018 and as of 2022 is an associate member. He co-founded the Archive of Public Protests in 2019. He lectures in photography at the ITF.

Personal life

He is married to Ania Nałęcka-Milach.

Publications

Publications by Milach

*''7 Rooms.'' With texts by Svetlana Alexievich.
**First edition. Heidelberg, Germany: Kehrer, 2011. .
**Second edition. Heidelberg, Germany: Kehrer, 2013.
*''Black Sea of Concrete.'' Warsaw: afał Milach 2013. Photographs and text (in English). Edition of 300 copies. .
*''The Winners.''
**First edition. London: Gost, 2014. . Edition of 553 copies (500 copies of the regular edition, 53 copies of the special edition).
**Second edition. London: Gost, 2014. . Edition of 200 copies.
*''The First March of Gentlemen.'' Collages and photographs by Milach, archival images by Ryszard Szczepaniak, text by , Milach, and Karol Szymkowiak.
**First edition. Kolekcja Wrzesińska, 2017.
**Second edition. London: Gost, 2018. . Edition of 650 copies.
*''Nearly Every Rose On The Barriers In Front Of The Parliament''. Warsaw: Jednostka Gallery, 2018. Polish-language edition; ; edition of 300 copies. English-language edition; ; edition of 200 copies.
*''I Am Warning You''. London: Gost, 2021. . With essays by Michael Dear, Antje Rávic Strubel

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