The exhibition, “Touch of Nature”, evokes excerpts from the work of artists using photography inspired by its analogue origins and representing different attitudes towards the natural world.

The second decade of the 21st century is when the renaissance of analogue photography takes place. In one concept proposed by Marianna Michałowska, it is an effect resulting from the saturation of visual culture with the ease of creating digital images; to put it simply, users of new imaging technologies have become bored with their ease. This is also the moment when the distinctiveness of the two ways of reproducing reality is clearly recognised: photochemical and digital. The historically earlier one, which dates back to the first half of the 19th century, stripped of the ballast of utilitarianism, became a field of artistic exploration. Quite quickly, however, those fields of exploitation of analogue photography which stemmed from a resentment for the past began to wear out. Paradoxically, these who practice the analogue approach, disqualifying the new technique because of its electronic pedigree, repeated the 19th century situation, in which the invention of photography was pitted against painting, while recognising that painting was more noble because it was created by the human hand.

The moment when the quality of digital images became perfect coincided with the moment when ecology ceased to be merely a field of natural sciences, becoming also an attitude of conscious use of natural resources. This situation has delineated the field of artistic exploration, where the use of a particular method or technique is closely linked to the transmission of content signalling a problem related to the well-being of our planet. Alice Cazenave, Hannah Fletcher and Edd Carr created a manifesto of Sustainable Darkroom, looking for alternatives in photographic process technology based on environmentally benign compounds. In the exhibition, Alice Cazenave will present photograms using the photosensitivity of chlorophyll. The image of the eyes frozen on a geranium leaf seems to be carefully observing our actions towards nature. Hannah Fletcher visually depicts the relation between used components of photochemical solution, using them as painting pigments. In the works realised with Alice Cazenave, she applies self-prepared ingredients of plant and mineral origin to analogue processing. Finally, Edd Carr will present his experimental film I am a darkroom, in which a combination of old photographic technologies and ‘trash’ practices is used as a pretext to tell the story of photography’s entanglement in its toxic legacy.

The slowness inherent in analogue techniques, with simultaneous reference to the historical contexts of ways of imaging, becomes a pretext for Paweł Kula’s light-sensitive realisations. The ephemeral nature of natural pigments and the cosmic perspective of observing natural processes become a pretext for the artist to reflect on cycles that transcend individual existence.

Georgia Krawiec, on the other hand, looks at her identity entangled in the turbulence of history, which allows her to move within Polish and German culture. In the series of non-camera images created on photographic paper by exposing for almost nine months oak leaves collected in Poland and Germany, she reduces the problem of their origin to abstract forms that form a surprising light-sensitive mosaic.

Anthotype, a Victorian technique developed by Mary Somerville and Sir John Herschel in 1840s, was quickly abandoned in favour of more permanent processes. Durability was a priority in the pioneering days of photography. For Mary Kocol, the use of this technique today becomes a pretext to reflect on the fragility of life. She expresses this in a series of portraits made after pandemic isolation, depicting her friends. The notebook presented in the exhibition is the result of her consistent explorations revealing the almost limitless potential of the colour palette obtained from plant pigments.

A prerequisite for photographic images, both contemporary and ancient, is light. Paradoxically, in the anthotypical works of Jesseca Ferguson, who uses mainly sunlight to realise them, there are motifs that refer to the time of night: Moon, Owl, Moths. Their dark colours seem to emphasise the power of the motifs present in the photograph.

For many years I have been collecting organic artefacts: insect wings, whole insects, feathers, dried plants; or naturally mummified birds and amphibians. The objects from this collection become a pretext for works in which I use historical techniques. At the moment, I mainly work in cyanotypes, I create small objects and enclose them in entomological showcases. In doing so, I attempt to recreate my own reception of the natural world, creating a kind of atlas of fantasy biology.

Marek Noniewicz, Bydgoszcz, 08.12.2024

The exhibition “Touch of Nature” will open on 23.01.2025 at the Municipal Gallery bwa in Bydgoszcz and will run until 16.03.2025.

Artists participating in the project:

 
Curators: Paweł Kula, Marek Noniewicz
Project coordination: Karolina Leśnik–Patelczyk

Start 23.01.2025, 6pm
20 Gdańska St.
End 16.03.2025