Naomi Makowska Link

Makowska’s work primarily investigates "non-elite" networks and the agency of women who lived on the fringes of institutional power. Key Dissertation Focus : Her doctoral research, titled

Her research centers on the intersection of gender and authority in early modern society.

She presented at the " The Night as a Private Space " conference at the University of Copenhagen (2025), presenting a paper titled ”Navigating the Dark: The City, Body and Magic in Seventeenth-Century Modena,” which explored the interplay of urban environments and nocturnal activities.

Makowska has been called "the patron saint of beautiful sadness" ( Artforum ) and "a necessary antidote to the algorithmic image" ( Frieze ). However, she has also faced criticism for what some call "aesthetic over-privileging"—a sense that her work can feel too insulated, too precious. A 2023 review in The Brooklyn Rail argued that her focus on atmospheric erosion sometimes avoids the "gritty, political urgency" of her Polish contemporaries. naomi makowska

Her research has achieved significant institutional recognition, securing prestigious financial backing from federal and provincial funding bodies, including:

Recently, the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender (SSEMWG) announced Naomi as their incoming for a three-year term starting in January 2026. In addition to her administrative work, she has experience teaching undergraduate courses on early modern Italian women at Queen's University.

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Born in Kraków, Poland, and later based between Berlin and Reykjavík, Makowska’s artistic voice is deeply rooted in the Nordic and Eastern European aesthetics of melancholy and resilience. She began her career as a documentary photographer, but soon grew disillusioned with the medium’s claim to "truth." Her breakthrough series, The Unremembered Hour (2018), marked a turning point: soft-focus images of empty rooms, fog-shrouded coastlines, and hands holding invisible objects. The series rejected sharpness in favor of grain and deliberate blur, forcing the viewer to fill in the narrative gaps with their own subconscious.

Her work aligns with and expands upon foundational scholarship in the field: Historian / Scholar Focus Area Key Themes Early Modern Modena, Italy

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, continuing her work to bring these historical narratives to light. she studied or her work with the

Makowska’s response, in a rare interview with Aperture , was characteristically understated: “The political is not always loud. Sometimes, it is the quiet act of preserving a fragile image against the tide. That is its own resistance.”