For over twelve years, Agnieszka Sosnowska has been documenting her life since moving to Kleppjárnsstaðir, a farm in Hróarstunga, East Iceland. She is at once a farmer, a teacher and a photographer. Using a large-format view camera with black and white film, Agnieszka photographs herself, her students and the compelling landscape that they occupy. All aspects of her new life in Iceland – her home, her family, her work and her community – have become her subjects, or rather stories, that unfold throughout her photographic works.

Playing with the boundaries between mythology and realism, these autobiographical portraits share the narrative of Agnieszka’s cross-cultural immersion into rural Iceland, and a life deeply connected to the land and its people. In these photographs, time, ritual, myth, sensuality, endurance and the uncanny, recall the primal nature of this relatively remote landscape and the significance of folklore within Icelandic culture. 

Agnieszka Sosnowska holds an MFA in Studio Education from Boston University. She currently teaches English at Brúarskolí in Jökulsárhlið, and is a member of Físl – The Icelandic Contemporary Photography Association.