My work focuses on plants, their environments, and the natural processes that unfold on both visible and molecular scales. I investigate pigments and organic compounds found in leaves, flowers, and roots, not simply as visual sources but as active materials that respond to light, time, temperature, moisture, and chemical transformation. These qualities form the basis of my experiments in analogue photography.

 

Through observation, experience, and experimentation, I explore how physical and chemical processes manifest themselves in the darkroom. I develop alternative photographic techniques in which natural materials actively participate in image formation. One example is the Florachrome method, created for analogue printing with plant-derived pigments. Oxidation and metallurgical reactions are also central to my practice. These processes allow photographic surfaces to continue transforming over time.

 

The darkroom functions as an experimental environment where light, chemistry, time, and matter converge. Images emerge not solely through technical control but through interaction, unpredictability, and the agency of materials themselves. Photography becomes a collaboration between maker and matter.

 

Biodiversity is fundamental to this research. Plants, microorganisms, minerals, water, and atmospheric conditions exist within complex networks of interdependence. What appears chaotic often reveals patterns of organization, rhythm, and resilience. Geological processes such as erosion, sedimentation, clay deposition, and crystallization demonstrate how matter is constantly displaced, accumulated, and transformed. Like sedimentary layers, photographic emulsions record the effects of time and environment, carrying traces of their histories.

 

My work explores parallels between living and mineral systems. Nature is not merely represented but actively participates in the creation of the image. Plants, light, chemistry, time, and matter collaborate in ongoing processes of transformation. Order and disorder are not opposites but complementary forces that shape both ecological and photographic systems. Rather than controlling these dynamics, my work seeks to make them visible as interactions between human beings, nature, matter, and light.

 

Across scales. 

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Arja