Karolina Nocoń presents ECHO in Tromsø

Photographer Karolina Nocoń has presented her photographic project ECHO at Galleri Snerk and FINT in Tromsø, following earlier exhibitions in Prague. Developed over several years, the series brings together her interest in photography, the natural environment and the relationship between people and their surroundings.

Nocoń’s photographic practice began during adolescence. She initially focused on photographing people before developing a stronger interest in landscapes, particularly those of northern regions and remote islands. Her subsequent studies in environmental science contributed to changes in how she approaches her subjects.

Much of ECHO was created in Northern Norway. The project has been presented in four exhibitions, with each location offering a different setting for the photographs.

In this interview with Nordrom Kunst, Nocoń discusses her artistic development, the relationship between photography and scientific knowledge, and her experience presenting ECHO in Prague and Tromsø.

Karolina Nocoń, ECHO, Reinøya. Photo: Karolina Nocoń.

Photography and environmental science

Nordrom Kunst: Your background combines visual arts, Earth science and hands-on experience in botanical gardens and environmental conservation. How has this combination shaped your photographic practice? Are there particular ways in which your scientific knowledge influences what you choose to photograph, or how you approach a subject?

Karolina Nocoń: Photography came first. It has been one of the most enduring threads of my life, growing alongside me since adolescence and weaving its way through its different chapters. I think photography gradually became an additional sense through which I perceived the world and came to know it, before becoming a language through which I could also give it form.

I suppose this early habit of looking contributed to my curiosity towards the natural world, which I eventually decided to study. And the influence has since travelled in both directions. Learning about the phenomena and processes that have shaped, and continue to shape, this planet has subtly altered my perception of what I photograph. It has placed a certain filter over how I perceive both the subject and the background of my photographs, and increasingly, the distinction between the two becomes blurred.

I rarely photograph indoors. My visual world exists predominantly outdoors, in direct relationship with nature, and is guided by a deep sensitivity towards its character, its transformations and its vulnerability. I think that, even subconsciously, my photographs often explore the idea of belonging to a larger natural system. There is curiosity in them, but also a certain tenderness, a sense of responsibility and perhaps even a quiet desire to take sides.

Studying environmental science has made me more conscious of the fragility of the world we inhabit, and with that comes a need to carry some of this awareness into my artistic practice. But I am interested in communicating it through something less explicitly political and more emotional. Rather than appealing to reason or presenting an argument, I would like my photographs to reach something more instinctive, something that precedes our intellectual understanding of the world and speaks directly to our sense of belonging to it.

People and northern environments

Nordrom Kunst: You began photographing people in 2008, later turned towards northern landscapes, and have more recently brought these two interests together. What prompted these changes in your work? And how have your experiences of living in places such as Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Northern Norway influenced the way you photograph people and their surroundings?

Karolina Nocoń: What I photograph has always been closely tied to where and how I live. The changes in my photography tend to follow the changes in my life. I have never really stopped photographing people, but I sometimes feel the need to step away when the act of photographing becomes too automatic, or when I can no longer recognise myself in the images I make.

In the beginning, photographing people was a way of approaching them, of meeting, understanding and perhaps even taming something in the unfamiliar territory of human relationships. I have always been rather individualistic by nature, and photography offered a different way of entering that world. Later, as I began travelling more, I found myself increasingly drawn to photographing landscapes and documenting – but also interpreting – places that, at the time, seemed exotic to me. That curiosity has never really left me, but over the years photography has become, above all, a language of artistic expression. I have grown increasingly concerned with the relationship between what I photograph and the personal constellation of meanings and feelings that lies behind each image.

I have long been drawn to northern places and remote islands. There is something about these landscapes that has always felt strangely familiar to me, long before I had the chance to inhabit them. Perhaps my inner landscape is not so different. Placing a human figure within these surroundings, whether someone else or myself, feels less like a deliberate artistic decision than a natural continuation of that relationship. I am interested in the ways a person and a place can become inseparable, as though they were formed by the same forces.

Living in the North has undoubtedly shaped my visual language and my sensitivity to light in all its forms and transformations. But I believe its influence is as much personal as it is artistic, and the two have grown closely intertwined. After all, the way we see changes with the places from which we look.

Karolina Nocoń, ECHO, Tjurpannan. Photo: Karolina Nocoń.

ECHO from Prague to Tromsø

Nordrom Kunst: ECHO has travelled from Prague to Tromsø through four exhibitions, including its recent presentations at Galleri Snerk and FINT. How did the project originally develop, and what has changed between these different exhibitions? You mentioned that Galleri Snerk offered a setting more suited to the photographs. What made that space particularly appropriate for the work?

Karolina Nocoń: ECHO is a series of photographs that has been taking shape over the past few years, accompanying an important period of transition in my life, both personally and artistically. I think of it as a project that begins with listening. The photographs are, in a sense, the final trace of a process of attunement, observation and quieting the mind, until the boundary between seeing and listening becomes less distinct. There is something about trying to hear what one wishes to see. The images emerge somewhere between the senses, and I hope they can invite the viewer into a similar state of attentiveness.

We spoke earlier about how living in the North has influenced my photography. I believe ECHO carries this influence to such an extent that presenting it here in Tromsø felt only natural, especially since much of the work was created in Northern Norway. It was intriguing to see how people could rediscover something of their own surroundings through my interpretation of these places and our connection to them, finding a different way of looking at what had long been familiar. In Prague, the encounter was of a different nature. I was interested in how the images might speak to a more universal longing for the natural world, for the wild, for a sense of belonging and connection that we sometimes seem to have lost. A longing that can be recognised regardless of where we live.

Karolina Nocoń, ECHO, Eyjafjörður. Photo: Karolina Nocoń.

Each exhibition has been a slightly different encounter between the photographs and the space they inhabit. Galleri Snerk, in particular, offered something very close to what I had imagined for ECHO. It is an atmospheric gallery, intimate and solemn at the same time, with enough space and darkness for the photographs to breathe. Because listening is so central to the project, I wanted the images to exist without unnecessary visual or sonic distractions, apart from the music I had chosen for the opening. I felt that the space allowed the photographs to exist on their own terms, inviting the viewer to spend time with them in a more attentive way.