photo by Nigel Ready
Ania Ready (born 1979) is a Polish-British photographic artist based in Oxfordshire, UK. She has an MA in Literature and Linguistics from the University of Gdańsk, Poland. Her work centres around notions of belonging and alienation, memory and amnesia. She has a special interest in the topic of femininity and madness. Her main focus is photography, but she also engages with other art forms like collage and alternative, cameraless photographic processes.
Ania has exhibited her work internationally in group and solo shows at Modern Art Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum, ronapainting gallery, Irving Contemporary Gallery, Auckland Photo Festival in New Zealand, Riga Photomonth in Latvia, INTERPHOTO Photo Festival in Poland and many other places. This year she’s published her first book ‘I Also Fight Windmills’ (VIKA Books, 2023).
S O L O E X H I B I T I O N S
2023: I Also Fight Windmills, ronapainting gallery, PHOTO OXFORD Festival, Oxford, UK
2021: Hysterical Women, INTERPHOTO Festival Bialystok, Poland
2021: Brave New World, Riga Photomonth, Riga, Latvia
2019: Urban Geometry, joint exhibition with Magda Wolna, Andrew Wiles Building, UK
2018: Crossing Borders. To Calais and Back, Bartholomew's Room, Eynsham, UK
2017: Sophie in Her Own Words, Albert Sloman Library, Colchester, UK
2016: Sophie in Her Own Words, Wandsworth Town Library, London, UK
S E L E C T E D G R O U P E X H I B I T I O N S
2023: Performing the Photobook, FORMAT Festival, Derby, UK
2022: Women on Women II, ronapainting gallery, Oxford, UK
2022: A Room of Her Own, Irving Contemporary Gallery, Oxford, UK
2021: Correspondance, 12th Room, collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK
2021: The Portrait Within, The House of Smalls, UK
2020: Present Continuous, Modern Art Oxford, UK
2020: Breathworks (image and audio), Responsive Space, Modern Art Oxford, UK
2020: Ways and Means, SKELF Virtual Project Space
2020: Mirrors and Reflections, LoosenArt, Rome, Italy
2020: Present Continuous, digital, Auckland Photo Festival, New Zealand
2020: A Moment of Zen, digital, Exposure Photo Festival, Canada
2020: Focus on Photography, the Heseltine Gallery, UK
2019: SPC Photo Awards Geneva, Humanit'Art Gallery, Switzerland
2019: Night, The Glasgow Gallery of Photography, Glasgow, UK
2019: Lande: Calais ‘Jungle’ and Beyond, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK
2019: Woodland, Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot, UK
P H O T O G R A P H Y A W A R D S
2021: Shortlisted for Grand Prix Award, INTERPHOTO Photo Festival, Bialystok, Poland
2021: Shortlisted for Portrait of Humanity Award (together with Oliver Ready), UK
2019: Shortlisted for the She Performs exhibition at the Glass Tank Gallery, Oxford, UK
2018: Winner of the Think Human Photography, UK
2018: Winner of Chacun est libre d'être libre, Poland
2017: Best New Comer Award (Oxford Photographic Society)
B O O K S
'I Also Fight Windmills', VIKA Books, 2023
P U B L I C A T I O N S
'Recovering a Forgotten Archive' by Etain O'carroll for Photo Oxford Festival
Out Loud #1, 2022, launched in the first week of Les Rencontres d' Arles 2022
WerkHouse Zine ‘Still Life’ #2, 2021
Calvert Journal, 'Life After Covid', 2021
FK Magazine, '10 minutes with Ania Ready', 2021
Bialystok INTERPHOTO International Photography Festival Catalogue, 2021
'United', issue 1, Work Show Grow, 2021
'Mirrors and Reflections, Exhibition Catalogue, 2020
I N T E R V I E W S & I N S T A G R A M T A K E O V E R S
Interrogating place, gender, and the unconscious, Artist Talk Salon, New Forest Heritage Centre in person and live on zoom
Modern Art Oxford and Fusion Arts IG account takeover, Jan 2022 published in MAO Studio here and here
Featured Artist, Riga Photomonth, 2021
Photography and Literary Text, Instagram Live
Artist Spotlight on She Performs
E D U C A T I O N
Polish Literature and Linguistics, MA, University of Gdansk, Poland
English Literature and Linguistics, University of Gdansk, Poland
WORK SHOW GROW School with Natasha Caruana, online
P R O F E S S I O N A L D E V E L O P M E N T
Work Show Grow School (2020 - now)
Seeing Through Photographs, Museum of Modern Art New York, six week online course
Activating Our Archives with artist and curator Sunil Shah, group project and workshops, Modern Art Oxford and Fusion Arts
Work-Show-Grow. Money Workshop (with Natasha Caruana and Sarah Waldron), London, UK
Course on Funding, Shooting & Pitching Projects (with Peter Dench), After Nyne Gallery, London
Course on Photographic Essay (with Stuart Freedman), the Photographers’ Gallery, London
Studio Lighting Masterclass (with Magdalena Sienicka), private studio, Kettering, UK
Course on Making Photo Books (with Laura el-Tantawy), the Photographers’ Gallery, London
W O R K S H O P S , S E M I N A R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S
Responding to Archives, seminar with MA students, 2023, UAL, London,
Working on Personal Photographic Projects, 2023, international workshop online
Crowdfunding Production Costs, 2023, international workshop online
Crossing Borders, Reaching Home. Multilingual Poetry Translation Workshops, Oxford Translation Day (in collaboration with Kasia Szymanska, expert in translation studies)
Phantom Pains. A Personal Journey into Poland’s Past and Present, Oxford Photographic Society, January 2019
Working on a Long Term Project, PhotOX Photography Classes, December 2018
Sophie’s Story, Essex University, Colchester, March 2017
Sophie’s Story, Wandsworth Town Library, London, October 2016
E X H I B I T I O N C U R A T I O N
curated sixteen exhibitions at the Fairway Gallery at OUP in Oxford; collaborated with national and international artists, including Magda Berny, Wshear Wali, David Tolley, Bharat Patel, Magda Wolny and many others; prepared promotional materials and promoted the shows on social media