Celebration is a project that came to live naturally or even surprisingly during my third-year of study at the Glasgow School of Art when I have been working a lot as an event photographer to support my art career.

As I have been busy with events, I had no time to make a project for a group exhibition. Instead, I thought I would search through my hard drive and commercial shots and try to find at least one good picture I could print for the show. When searching for that one photograph I’ve noticed something quite interesting. I was capturing the moments that were not really about celebrating the events themselves. The function room corners, where no one is dancing became almost like an empty theatre sets and the feeling that if I would just slightly move my camera I would capture a big group of people dancing or eating, was something that fascinates me about photography. The ability to present the situation within one frame, with no sound, with no description of what’s happening next to it. Just one frame, for the viewer’s imagination, to make a story of the moment. I’ve been noticing that while taking pictures of kids during the big events, like the photographs of a girl lying down next to the buffet – taken on her parent’s wedding renewal. But these photographs were not showing kids having fun or dancing, but escaping into their own fantasy, careless, doing whatever they want to do. (2017)

Celebration / Taking Time

The project was going to be shown in Arles during the photo festival in June. The event was canceled and there are no new opportunities for the project to be shown. The Arles exhibition was a great chance for me as I have never participated in the festival. I was really looking forward to it.

In the age of constant questioning of the connection between us, humans, and the nature that surrounds us, the HUMANATURE exhibition came to being as a subconscious selection of images that represent the current mood of such conversations. Through the images that were created in different places and environments, it delivers the cohesive image of our relationship with the world, both natural and man-made. HUMANATURE does not deliver an answer or points towards a certain issue, but rather stays ambiguous in its outlook and leaves the interpretation to the spectator. HUMANATURE started with an interest in tourist’s behaviour in nature – (photographs made during artists’ residency in Iceland, 2018). 

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Natalia Poniatowska