Mike Bors – Futures Artist

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Mike Bors – Futures Artist

Mike Bors joined the Belfast Exposed ‘Futures Artists’ programme in 2018 and produced a solo exhibition ‘On Family Album’. Since then, Mike has gone on to exhibit internationally.

Mike is a Polish photographer and visual artist living and working in Ireland. His work is mostly autobiographical and uses images from the family album and newly made photographs. Mike’s practice uses personal narratives to speak about broader social issues. Through video pieces, collages and a series of notebooks, this ongoing investigation into family album explores the themes of family, identity and memory. The notebooks, reminiscent of minimalist scrapbooks, and the video installation create a psychological landscape of multiple experiences of separation, breakdown of family bonds, displacement and death.

His work is an attempt to visually reconstruct the feeling of being overwhelmed and lost in the family archive, rediscovered after many years of separation from the family. It attempts to question the truth of a family album – a subjective vision of a family life as curated by the album keeper – think about what happens when part of the history dies with the creator of that idillic family life pictured on the pages of The Family Album and visualize the struggle to reconnect and heal the strained family bonds.

After being awarded the Belfast Exposed Graduate Award and his solo exhibition ‘On Family Album’ he exhibited his work in Ireland and internationally as part of the Pingyao International Photography Festival, worked on a commission for the Centre of Migration Research University of Warsaw’s project exploring migration and people movement, been documenting the underground cabaret and burlesque scene. Mike has recently come back to work on the last chapter of the family album series.

View a selection of Mike Bors’ portfolio below