Thursday, January 29 – Saturday, March 14, 2026
Los Angeles Center of Photography
252 S. Los Angeles St., Los Angeles, CA
Free and open to the public

Thursday, January 29, 2026, 6:00–8:00 PM
Opening reception
RSVP here

Reservoir: Loneliness, Well-Being and Photography is a new and innovative photographic generator, designed to create a shared repository of responses to the global loneliness crisis through visual storytelling.

Much like reservoirs regulate the flow and storage of water, providing a sense of stability for their communities, this invitation-only collaborative project incubates new approaches through creative practice, research, and engagement.

Extending and amplifying LACP’s commitment to nurturing well-being and connectedness through visual storytelling, this multi-year project brings together artists, mentors, art centers, curators, publishers, mental health professionals, and technology innovators to incubate and develop groundbreaking projects, anchored in the meeting point of visual technologies, psychological and physical well-being and the ebbs and flows of human connection.

The new exhibition at the Los Angeles Center of Photography brings together over 40 artists to explore the global crisis of loneliness through visual storytelling, including Ada Zielińska, a Warsaw-based visual artist working with photography, video, and installation. Conceived as a collaborative, multi-year project, the exhibition creates a shared space for artistic responses focused on human connection and well-being.

Zielińska’s practice centers on destruction as a prerequisite for rebirth, using real and staged catastrophic events as a form of self-therapy and inquiry. Working within post-photography, she constructs carefully staged environments that invite reflection on the tension between beauty, collapse, and recovery. A recipient of the Futures Photography Programme award, she has exhibited internationally, including Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, the Capa Center in Budapest, and a solo presentation at PhotoBrussels.

In the Reservoir exhibition catalog, Ada Zielińska reflects on her artistic practice: “There’s no real difference between melting cheese and melting a headlamp. Both are pleasing. Both are intriguing. In both cases, the consequences are unknown. We call destruction dangerous, but it’s fear that makes it so. Controlled, it’s as satisfying as creation—which it is. My father was a firefighter. When I moved out, we reconnected by burning cars on weekends. That’s when I started to think of myself as an artist—and, strangely, that’s when my father started to be proud. I am a visual artist working primarily with photography, video, and installation. My main area of interest revolves around destruction as a prerequisite for rebirth—in this regard, my practice serves as a form of self-therapy. My creative approach centers on catastrophic events, whether experienced in real life or staged—not merely to document them, but to explore their aesthetics and the emotions they evoke. I’m somewhere in between a love letter and a crash report.”

Ada Zielińska, a Warsaw-based visual artist working in photography, video, and installation, explores destruction as a form of self-therapy and a prerequisite for rebirth, creating both real and staged catastrophic events that examine aesthetics and emotion, while constructing photogenic environments that engage viewers in the tension between beauty, destruction, and emotional response; she studied Media Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2015) and earned an MFA from the Institute of Creative Photography at the University of Silesia in Opava (2020), has exhibited widely in Poland and abroad—including solo and institutional shows in Belgium, Warsaw, Budapest, Paris, and Kraków—and has received multiple grants and recognitions, with her work featured in publications such as the British Journal of Photography, Vice, Over Journal, Uncertain States/Europe, Arte TV, and Fisheye Magazine.”

Background:

In 2000, political scientist Robert Putnam suggested America is becoming a nation of loners, who lose trust in their institutions as they retreat from life in community to solitude. And it seems things have only gotten worse in the decades that followed. A study published in 2023 examined 1649 adult participants from Norway, the UK, and Australia, and highlighted a direct relation between time spent on social media and an increased feeling of loneliness. Paradoxically, the more technologically connected we are, the more alone and isolated we feel. The Covid pandemic, political and social polarization, global wars, and economic shifts— those external factors contribute to feelings of isolation and detachment. These issues are further exasperated in a place like Los Angeles, where physical topographies, distances, and access to transportation impact emotional landscapes and contribute to a sense of isolation.

About the Los Angeles Center of Photography:
From its home in DTLA, LACP enables communities to capture, interpret, and reimagine the individual and cultural conflicts and the creative combustion that shape Los Angeles and influence the world. Each year, LACP offers hundreds of workshops and classes of all levels and genres online and in-person, it exhibits the work of over 300 photographers in virtual and in-person gallery exhibitions, which are free and open to the public. Additionally, LACP partners with multiple organizations to offer photography and visual literacy education for youth and children in underserved communities.

Participating Artists:

Lynne Breitfeller (NJ), Annette LeMay Burke (CA), Julia Buteux (RI), Chung-Ping Cheng (CA), Cathy Cone (VT), David Ellis (CA), Allyson Ely (CA), Nancy Farese (CA), Leslie Gleim (HI), Bootsy Holler (CA), Rohina Hoffman (CA), Valerie Horvath (Wash), Cynthia Johnston (Mass) , Sandra Klein (CA), Ana Leal (Brazil), Dana Long Kim (Wash), T. Chick McClure (CA), Lisa McCord (CA), Christina McFaul (CA), Stacy Mehrfar (NY), Diane Meyer (CA), Joan Morse (Wash) , Karen Duncan Pape (VA), Gillian Peckham (Wash), Carl Pfirman (CA), Olivia Phare (AZ), Wendy Ploger (AZ), Mario Rodriguez (FL), Rosalie Rosenthal (KY), Jacque Rupp (CA), Patricia Sandler (CA), Asiya al-Sharabi (VA/Egypt), Lisa Wissner-Slivka (WA), Elisabeth Smolarz (NY), Donna Tramontozzi (Chile), MG Vander Elst (NY), Junko Yokota (Ill), Ada Zielińska (POL)

This exhibition is supported by Angeles Art Fund and the Polish Cultural Institute New York.  It is part of the 2026 Hyper SoCal initiative, supporting nonprofit and municipal art venues for working artists in Southern California.