Newhaven Open: Julia Grzegorzewska

What We Cannot See is an experimental project exploring how our view of the surrounding environment can shift when it is presented in an unfamiliar way. What happens when we look at something we recognise from a completely different perspective? Can changing the way we see something change what we notice about it?

I digitally transform photographs of my local environment into photographic negatives, inverting their tonal values and colours. Areas of light become dark and shadows become light, disrupting recognisable textures, forms and details while keeping the photographs connected to the environments from which they originate. This process creates a cycle of observing, transforming and seeing again, encouraging me to reconsider familiar places and prompting the viewer to look at their surroundings differently.