Julia Schmidt & Arthur Zalewski

Arthur Zalewski and Julia Schmidt met during their studies at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig and have been in regular artistic exchange ever since. For the OSTEN festival, they are developing a joint work for the first time. During their stays in Bitterfeld and the surrounding area, they will create an image archive that combines material from different contexts and time levels.

Julia Schmidt, born in 1976 in Wolfen, works with painting, installation and various printing processes. Existing visual material as well as her own photographic recordings form the starting point of her artistic work. A central aspect lies in the selection and combination of motifs, their valorization or devaluation through the painterly implementation and their shift into new contexts of meaning. Since 2012, Julia Schmidt has taught as a professor of painting at the Münster Art Academy. She lives and works in Berlin.

Arthur Zalewski, born in 1971 in Kędzierzyn-Koźle (Poland), is a photographer. His artistic approach seeks ways to elaborate and visualize cultural, social and historical processes directly on location. The confrontation with concrete places plays an essential role. He situates his practice between documentation, conceptual elaboration, and autonomous form. Zalewski taught at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts from 2014 to 2021, where he lives.