Rafal Milach is a documentary photographer based in Warsaw, Poland. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland, and the Institute for Creative Photography (ITF) in Opava, Czech Republic. For more than ten years he has been working on transition issues in Russian-speaking countries and the CEE region. This work resulted in the book 7 Rooms (Kehrer Verlag, 2011) and such essays as “The Grey” (2002), “Wunderland” (2006), “Disappearing Circus” (2008), and “Black Sea of Concrete” (2009). Rafal’s photos were exhibited at MOCA Shanghai and are the part of the collection of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in Japan. They have been also presented at PHotoEspaña, Look3, and Rencontres Photographiques d’Arles. In 2007, Rafal took part in the Joop Swart Masterclass run by World Press Photo. In the next three years, he received stipends from the Polish Ministry of Culture, the European Cultural Foundation, and the Visegrad Fund. His pictures have been honored with World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, Photography Book Now, and New York Photo Festival awards.
In 2006, together with ten other Central Eastern European photographers, Rafal created a photo collective, Sputnik Photos, to document, promote, and spread knowledge on transition issues in CEE countries. For the past three years, Rafal has run a documentary workshop at the Academy of Photography in Warsaw. He was also the curator of such book projects as Rough Cut (2011), 25/25, and Don't Mess with Texas (2011) within Photomonth in Krakow. Rafal is a guest lecturer at the ITF in Opava.