My name is Emilia Martin (1991) and I am a Polish artist based in The Hague, Netherlands.
In my artistic practice, I work with the intersections of photographic image, writing and sound, exploring how stories, myths and rituals shape and reflect the societal structures and relations in place. Rooted in the belief in the power of storytelling informed by my ancestral heritage, my work aims to challenge binary understandings of fiction and truth, alongside their aesthetic conventions.
I grew up in between two radically different realities: a remote farm of my grandmother in rural Eastern Poland and Silesia – a coal-mining urban region in the country’s industrial West. My formative years were shaped not only by these contrasts but also by larger systemic shifts: I was born in the year of the first democratic elections of post Communist Poland, witnessing the uneasy metamorphosis into capitalist modes.
The friction between these worlds and their competing definitions of truth and history, the forces of patriarchy and extractivism set against rural mythologies of interdependence with nature, together formed a complex landscape that is a ground for my artistic practice.
Guided by intersectional feminist discourse, I position my work as part of a living ecosystem where vulnerability and interconnectedness are not just themes, but methods.
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My work is generously supported by Cultuurfonds, Mondriaan Fonds, Amarte Fonds, STROOM, Gemeente Den Haag and Instytut Adama Mickiewicza.
