Rodzaj projektu: Photographs

Sunspot released by RUST Publishing is a visual and textual journey through an unfamiliar landscape, guided by intuition and chance. The path was traced using sunspots—luminous afterimages left on the retina after looking into the sun—which served as a spontaneous mapping gesture and a starting point for further exploration.

Through photographs and fragments of text, the artist searches for meaning in accidental symbols and fleeting signs, assembling them into fragile, temporary narratives that are constantly unraveling. Repetition, displacement, and ambiguity shape a shifting labyrinth that invites the viewer to wander.

This book explores the tension between the human urge to comprehend space and the inherent elusiveness of the world. Drawing inspiration from the travels of Roni Horn, the land art of Robert Smithson, and the literary visions of Borges, Calvino, Verne, and Abe Kobo, Sunspot is both a poetic atlas and an open-ended story of perception.

Photography – Joanna Tochman

Editing – Jakub Szachnowski, Krzysiek Orłowski

Design – Jakub Szachnowski

Text – Joanna Tochman

Translation – Oskar Wanat

Prepress & DTP – Jakub Szachnowski

Special thanks to Tomáš Agat Bloński and Szymon Nowak

for their support in the production of darkroom prints.

Photography Studio II / Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków

Edition of 200+10. 28x22cm + 20x15cm (book inside) / 56 pages, Swiss bound / Papers: Munken LYNX, Munken Rough

Sunspot is a record of a trek through an unfamiliar landscape. The route was determined intuitively by marking a map with solar spots—luminous afterimages that appeared on the artist’s retina after looking into the sun. This gesture became the impulse for further exploration and an attempt to subject the landscape to geometric imagination. Throughout her journey, the photographer searched for meaning in randomly encountered symbols, arranging them into temporary narratives that kept unravelling. Repetitions, shifts, and ambiguities formed the structure of a moving labyrinth, through which images and texts guide the viewer. The project speaks to the tension between the desire to understand space and its elusiveness. The artist drew inspiration from the travels of Roni Horn, the concepts of Robert Smithson, and the writings of Borges, Calvino, Verne, and Kōbō Abe.

All photographs presented in the exhibition were developed by hand in a darkroom, emphasizing
the physical nature of working with light-sensitive material. This process, which requires
precision and attentiveness, is an integral part of the project and resonates with its contemplative,
experimental dimension.

Jakub Szachnowski, curatorial text for exhibition Sunspot, Fort Institute of Photography, Warsaw, 2025

Cranach’s pool, analog large format and medium format photography, 2018

A series inspired by artist’s disturbing obsession with Lucas Cranach’s painting Fountain of Youth.

The rules of the game go as follows: one must copy Cranach’s pool, move it to another location, trace it on the ground using pins and strings, while maintaining the exact proportions of the pool depicted in the painting. The task is not easy—what emerges in the field looks completely different than on the camera’s matrix, it turns out that perspective is a lie, and one has to contort oneself terribly to ensure the outlined shape has the appropriate proportions. In reality, it stretches across the entire meadow and more than a pool resembles a lying pillar.