We recently connected with Anna Goraczko and have shared our conversation below.

Anna, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on thus far is a photographic blueprint series that I am continuing to expand upon currently, “Sense of Belonging”. It is a collection of portraits of people in bigger bodies, and it began with my own self-discovery of my connection to nature. The question of whether or not I, or another person in a bigger body, is a part of nature became a focus of mine. I began to think of the many ways nature is marketed to us–the social and physical structure of nature activities and the images of who we see in the marketing of nature. As a part of a solo artist residency I attended located in a remote setting in the Olympic Peninsula, I began to feel connected to the mountains as I saw them reflecting the curves of my body. I created some self-portraits where I positioned myself mimicking the landscape. This project inspired me to think of other people in big bodies and what their experience has been. I am currently working on continuing the series to center bigger bodies in nature, bringing attention to hidden biases of who’s seen as acceptable in nature, but more importantly affirming a sense of belonging for those who may not have felt like it is accessible for them to enjoy and be a part of.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a Miami-born visual artist who employs cyanotypes to create vibrant blue images that focus on family history, body positivity, and spirituality. I have been interested in art from a very young age and became more serious about it as a vocation when I attended college. I was trained as a painter, but after living in Chicago, IL for almost a decade and focusing on my career as a museum professional, I returned to Miami and attended grad school from 2017-2020. It was in those years where I was able to experiment with several different mediums and discover my love for cyanotypes. The artwork I make is largely tied to my family history and my upbringing in South Florida. After leaving home for awhile, coming back to it has opened up a newfound appreciation for it. Working with cyanotypes–a photogrpahic process using the UV rays of the sun–allows me to directly engage with the environment and see things in a new way. A lot of my work is about considering how images can be juxtaposed to make connections across various timelines, reimagining how memories can be collected. I use found photos from my family’s archive and arrange them with my personal photos from my cellphone, considering the spiritual connection they evoke. The process allows me to hold pictures in my hand, while bringing them into the technological world. I think a lot about how these images travel back and forth in time.

In my photographic portrait series, I am physically laying down on the surface of the work, bringing in another level of image recording. There is an element of physical presence that is abstracted by the nature of how the light hits the body and creates the shape of the person. This allows for a dream-like and otherworldly presentation of the body, one that welcomes the viewer in. In my series, “Sense of Belonging”, I am directly engaging with the notion of taking up space as a big person, and bringing attention to the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways in which society’s standards creep into our own understanding of who is allowed certain experiences and who is not.

I am most proud of the evolving nature of the work and continuing to find new connections and what it could potentially describe to the viewer. I love that the nature of art allows me to continue to wonder within my work and I hope it encourages others to do the same.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

The best thing you can do for an artist is to support them financially–whether that’s purchasing art, donating to their practice, giving them art supplies, offering a space to work/live, etc. In my experience, the hardest thing to do as an artist is having to take your focus off your art-making and put it on making money to survive. When you support artists, you’re giving them another chance to keep going and keep working as an artist and you become a part of that contribution to society.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

One of my favorite resources for finding opportunities is Artist Community Alliance

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.annagoraczko.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annagoraczkoart/