Jakub Stanek (b. 1988, Warsaw) is a visual artist working across photography, performative gestures, and sculptural objects. His practice focuses on contemporary narratives of fatherhood, the redefinition of masculinity, and the relationship between the individual and broader social, legal, and cultural structures. Drawing from autobiographical experience, Stanek transforms personal history into universal visual stories about care, vulnerability, responsibility, and human connection.
Alongside his long-term projects, he develops social and ecological works, often created in collaboration with his son. These intergenerational projects explore how children and adults perceive environ mental change differently and use shared artistic practice as a space for dialogue, imagination, and re-thinking our relationship with nature.
Stanek’s works have been exhibited at the Museum of Warsaw, the National Museum in Kraków, and the Museum of Contemporary Art China. In 2024, his project on contemporary fatherhood was presented at Paris Photo, as part of a special initiative created in collaboration with Magnum Agency and Polaroid, marking an important recognition of his research into intimate yet socially urgent themes.
He studied at the Academy of Photography in Warsaw and at the Institute of Creative Photography (ITF) in Opava, and participated in the Sputnik Photos Mentoring Program. His practice combines photography with installation, video, performance, and resin sculpture, forming multi-layered narrative structures that address care, ecology, masculinity, and systems of power.
His ongoing project To Do List examines modern parenthood and the shifting models of family life within contemporary society. Jakub Stanek lives and works in Warsaw.
Instagram: @stanekjakub
website: https://www.stanekjakub.com/