Hanna Kostanski was born in Szczecin, Poland in 1983 and came to Hamilton, Ontario with her family in 1988. A recent
graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design with a Bachelor in Fine Art, Hanna currently resides in Hamilton and draws inspiration from her surroundings.

About

In every environment there are subjective landscapes, informed and edited by our personal histories. Having emigrated from
Szczecin, Poland to Hamilton, Ontario, I was equipped at an early age for a lifelong relationship of active observation and interaction with my surroundings. My experiences with landscape have allowed me to distill my aesthetic choices and forced me to recognize the environment as fragile, volatile, and constantly changing. My current body of work references the role of memory in the amended landscape, exploring a personal retelling of the experienced environment.

Artist statement

Still Standing – Detroit, Michigan January 2009 to January 2010

My current body of work focuses on the landscape of Detroit, Michigan. As an artist interested in the documentation of the contemporary urban landscape, I am naturally drawn to the haunting beauty of the city of Detroit.
While some of the buildings represented in this series – such as the gorgeous and stately Michigan Central Station – are well-documented, there are many family homes, low-rise apartment buildings, and architecturally impressive hotels and storefronts, for which a history is difficult to trace. It is my hope that, through this series, I can document and exalt these many nameless buildings.
This series is a loving homage to the city of Detroit.