photo by Nigel Ready
Ania Ready is a Polish-British photographic artist and author based in Oxfordshire, UK. She works with photography, archives, and texts. In her work, she explores the human psyche, and how it can be affected by outside forces: societal, medical and political ones. Ready is interested in what it means to have an agency in how we look and respond to the world. She has a special interest in the topic of femininity, hysteria and madness. Ready creates images, collages, and also works with alternative, cameraless processes.
Born in 1979, Ready spent her childhood in communist Poland. She has an MA in Literature and Linguistics from the University of Gdańsk, Poland. She moved to the UK in 2004.
Ready has exhibited her work internationally in group and solo shows at Modern Art Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum, ronapainting gallery, Irving Contemporary Gallery, Gdynia Film Gallery, Auckland Photo Festival in New Zealand, Riga Photomonth in Latvia, INTERPHOTO Photo Festival in Poland, Photo Oxford in the UK, and many other places.
Last year she published her literary photobook ‘I Also Fight Windmills’ (VIKA Books, 2023) which is now part of a rare books collection at Bodleian Library, British Library, Martin Parr Foundation, Lodz Film Institute (Poland), Women and the Photobook Library organized in collaboration with 10x10 books, Photobook Café Library London, Aperture Library NYC, Arles Photobook Library, Swerve Magazine Art Book collection Ireland, Birmingham City University Library, Essex University Library, NOMUS Photography Museum in Gdansk (Poland). It’s also been acquired by private collectors in the UK, Ireland, USA, Poland and New Zealand.
S O L O E X H I B I T I O N S
2024: Ja też walczę z wiatrakami ( I Also Fight Windmills), Grudziądz Museum, Poland
2024: Ja też walczę z wiatrakami ( I Also Fight Windmills) Gdynia Film Centre, Poland
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
2024: Return to the Sea, The Seafront Gallery, Worthing, UK
2024: Brighton Photo Fringe (as Rethinking Eastern Europe collective), Brighton, UK
2024: We Also Fight Windmills, Berwick upon Tweed, UK
2024: Open Salon, The Old Fire Station, Oxford, UK
2024: Rethinking Eastern Europe, Photobook Cafe, London, UK
2024: For Women by Women 4th edition, ronapainting gallery, UK
2023: Winter exhibition, Ayres House Studios, Wallingford, UK
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
R E V I E W S
On melancholy, madness and dreams, by Karolina Slup Lynx Contemporary https://contemporarylynx.co.uk/book-bliss-on-melancholy-madness-and-dreams
‘A thought provoking literary photobook’ by Natasha Caruana https://www.instagram.com/p/Cu2NzKZIp-W/
‘Creative Transformations’ by Marianna Leszczyk: https://www.pol-int.org/polish-studies-blog/polish-studies-beyond-academia-creative-transformations
‘Recovering a Forgotten Archive’ by Etain O’Carroll: https://www.photooxford.org/news/blog/recovering-a-forgotten-archive
P U B L I C A T I O N S
Rethinking of Easter Europe by Zula Rabikowska and Paulina Korobkiewicz: https://contemporarylynx.co.uk/12-contemporary-photographers-rethinking-eastern-europe
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
Interview for Museum of Emigration, Gdynia, Poland, June 2024
FastForward Women in Photo, instagram takeover, (about "We Also Fight Windmill' collaborative project), May 2024
Book talk at Centrala, Birmingham, discussing 'I Also Fight Windmills' with Rachel Segal-Hamilton, April 2024
Interview for TVP Polonia, March 2024
The Photographers' Gallery instagram takeover, Feb 2024 (featuring 'I Also Fight Windmills')
Book launch at The Photographers' Gallery, discussion with Christine Monarchi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdMDmybASfk
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
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
Kickstarter for Photobooks, workshop, online
Playing with Image and Text, workshop, Tsundoku Art Book Fair, Dublin
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