Aleksandra Kossowska – Photojournalist Based in Warsaw

Homo sacer (Latin for "holy man" or "cursed man") is a casuistic term in Roman law that refers to a person who is socially excluded. A person is deprived of all rights and their life is considered condemnable. A Homo sacer can be killed with impunity, but cannot be sacrificed on the altar.Philosopher Giorgio Agamben used this term in his book "Homo sacer: Sovereign Power and Naked Life," in which he describes the homo sacer as "an unnecessary person" - an individual who exists before the law as a fugitive and stateless person, deprived of all rights except the "right to life." Paradoxically, the law that gives identity to the individual is the same law that allows society to consider a person a homo sacer.

Agamben points out the deep kinship of totalitarian systems with democratic systems that falsely undermine the idea of human rights and approach systems of power that affect the biological lives of people and entire nations. The conditions of homo sacer, today's refugees and those persecuted during the Holocaust are similar. Before the Jews were taken to concentration camps, they were deprived of their citizenship.So-called sacred and inalienable human rights prove to be completely unprotected when it becomes impossible to define a person as a citizen of a country.This is an ongoing project.