In Praise of Shadow - Book Review by Laura Carbonell, Punto de Fuga

Brief introduction,

Punto de Fuga is an experimental platform for photography books. I had the pleasure of having my book In Praise of Shadow reviewed by Laura Carbonell, for which I thank her very much! On puntodefugabogota.com you can find this review as well as many others.

In Praise of Shadow is Tomasz Kawecki’s most recent photographic project. Utilizing his distinct approach to the medium, the viewer is confronted with a profound study of the natural world and the shadows it inevitably casts. Beneath our clouded and accustomed perception of the material world, Tomasz Kawecki assumes the existence of a shadow realm, untouched by human appropriation and reveals landscapes and rituals where death is assumed as a presence. In this work a hiding place for animistic and primordial beliefs that is still unexplored in a world that is otherwise measured and exploited.

The book was published by Rust Publishing in 2024. The simplicity of its format gives this work a powerful effect, creating an environment of shadow and mystery.

P.D.F: Tomasz, In Praise of Shadow is a very interesting book. The readers are taken into the depths of the earth, seeing and feeling the thickness, wet and cold that emanates from caves, rural houses and landscapes surrounded by darkness. Light seems to be there to support that sensation of obscurity and shadow. Why did you call this book In Praise of Shadow and not In Praise of Darkness?

T.K.: The title In Praise of Shadow was inspired by the Japanese writer Jinchiro Tanizaki. In his essay of the same title, he compares Western and Japanese aesthetics. In Japanese culture, the concept of shadow does not carry negative connotations. This contrasts with Western culture, where the worship of light, particularly the sun, is a prominent theme. P.D.F: Just to give the readers some clues of what we cannot see in the book, can you tell us where were those images taken?

T.K.: This region was previously part of the territory of modern Germany. Following the Second World War, the majority of Lower Silesia was incorporated into Poland. During the Second World War, the area was under the control of the Nazi regime. The largest mining and construction project of Nazi Germany, Riese-the Giant, was created at the cost of thousands of human lives. It is a network of tunnels that was presumably designed to withstand atomic explosions. Additionally, it functioned as a weapons depot. The rationale behind the construction of these facilities has never been fully elucidated, which has contributed to the proliferation of legends surrounding them. In the vicinity of Nowa Ruda, situated above Walbrzych, is the final Nazi mausoleum. The region is home to the Owl Mountains and the Table Mountains, as well as numerous closed mines. These include poor drifts, which are holes fed by miners who were left without work. A trip to the Forest will reveal a landscape that is simultaneously awe-inspiring and traumatic. It is a landscape that has been shaped by human activity, yet it has also been able to develop without human intervention. This has resulted in a unique atmosphere that is characterised by a sense of mystery and horror.

P.D.F: In the book we see the traces of very mysterious rituals. The presence of religious symbols, bone sculptures and other materials look like reinterpretations of the sacred in moments where death, bones, obscurity and coldness are admitted. The landscape full of rocks, cavities, underground lakes and distant rural constructions is very appropriate for this sort of rituals. What drove you to portray those cavities and those places?

T.K.: My design premise was to identify locations that could serve as places of refuge for animistic cults that had been marginalised by the ultra-civilised modern world. These cults were to engage in prayer to the original deities. These are fundamental beliefs that originated from observations of natural phenomena and meteorological events.

In contrast to the anthropocentric perspective, animistic beliefs posit that all entities in the natural world, including inanimate objects such as stones, trees, and animals, possess a soul and are thus equal to humans.

P.D.F: Many of the bones and the buildings surrounded by nature are portrayed as sculptures. In those pictures, we see the cruel influence of time and how sometimes it produces a form of decay. Can you tell us more about this aspect of the work? Are those bone sculptures part of a personal ritual you practised?

T.K.: I wanted to document the various activities of these primordial animistic cults, which did not exist and which I had to invent myself. I began to wonder what such a cult might have done. What traces did they leave? These were the questions I asked myself as I wandered through Lower Silesia, I observed reality and thought about what I could borrow from it.

Over time, except for the things I found, I also began to create installations and objects that could answer these questions.

P.D.F: There are some portraits of a young woman posing naked at night with half her body submerged in some lakes inside the caves. Those images are charged with a beautiful contrast between the purity of that innocent body enlightened by your photographic illumination and the darkness of the environment where she is. In some pictures, this person is looking at the camera and moving her hands in a specific way. What is she performing there?

T.K.: It is a person who enters this darkness, embraces it and surrenders to it. She is part of the cult of the shadow. There is a sequence in the book where she performs a ritual. I was inspired by Lorelei. She is a mermaid from German legends who attracted wanderers and fishermen to the water.

P.D.F: In this book, we can see death as a presence in the obscure landscape. It is symbolically represented by the oil, the bones, the detritus and the wet caves. Nevertheless, life is also there as a pulsion and a vibrant presence, surviving those decadent places. Is this a way of saying that no matter how much we look for the shadows and the darkness of a natural landscape, there is always some vitality resisting decomposition and decay? What does light mean to you?

T.K.: Over time I have realised that what I identify with this cult and what interests me has been rejected by man because it is ugly, slimy, rotting and does not agree with his harmonious image of beautiful nature. These primordial beliefs and organisms have been repressed by humanity because they are uncomfortable to acknowledge.

The flourishing of entire ecosystems depends on the existence of night, shadow, and darkness. By lengthening the day, humans have disrupted the diurnal rhythm necessary for all living things. We must come to terms with darkness, just as we worship light.

P.D.F: The book-making process is always interesting. I would like to know how did you process the editing along with Jakub Szachnowski, Aleksandra Przybysz and Michał Łuczak. What were the important decisions you made that gave this book its final shape?

T.K.: We started by viewing the whole thing together with Jakub Szachnowski and Aleksandra Przybysz. An important moment was to decide on the type of narrative that would dictate the arrangement of the sequence of photographs. We wanted to create a photographic essay modelled on a character's journey in literature. We modelled it on Alice in Wonderland or Orpheus' journey to the underworld. The whole thing was to have the atmosphere and feel of a gothic novel. The final step was to confirm whether the narrative and the layout of the photographs were as clear as we wanted them to be. Michal Luczak was the person who had the greatest at the very end when we had already lost ourselves in our objectivity. Sometimes it's good to take a break from the material and come back to it to gain distance. We were unfortunately pressed by deadlines, so we needed someone we could trust with a fresh approach, without all the things Jakub and Aleksandra and I were not sure were clear in the story.

P.D.F.: The design is simple but very effective. The typography is very beautiful and it gives the necessary information without charging the book. What was the input given by Jakub Szachnowski on the final layout of the book?

T.K.: Jacob's big inspiration was postmodern novels and their layouts. The layout of the book was to refer to classic novels. We did not want the design to in any way distract from the pictorial story that we had very meticulously laid out.

P.D.F: The book has a text written by Aleksandra Przybysz. I wanted to know what is your approach to this text and what it brings to the understanding of your work.

T.K.: This is a separate chapter. There are some literal repetitions, like the railway tracks we can find in the photograph. But still, It can be said that both stories, the pictorial one and the written one, belong to the same universe. The story is something complementary that the pictures don't tell us, it is the action after the clapper on the film set. Photographs are more what we can find walking alone through a film set without the characters or the story/action being told. Photographs tell the story of a place, by looking at parts of it. As you turn the pages in the book, they take you into further passages, holes, corridors, caves, and water. The significance of the recurring water in the design is also very interesting. Water is synonymous with the subconscious. This story, this world takes place in the recesses of our collective consciousness.

P.D.F: The book has two different chapters that open with a drawing by Mikołaj Stachańczyk. We see people dancing. The trace of the drawing reminds me of old medieval dances. What is the meaning of those drawings?

T.K.: We wanted to separate the text from the rest of the book. It was meant to be another chapter. A separate story. As for the graphics, the inspiration came from old engravings and tarot cards. The first graphic depicts a lonely wanderer, a hermit.

The graphic that opens the second chapter, on the other hand, is a circle of dancing people holding hands. They are part of something, maybe a cult, maybe a religion, maybe they are performing a ritual? It is a direct reference to what takes place in the second chapter, Alexandra's story.

P.D.F: Last but not least, what is the meaning of the last words you include in this book: Filbroporia Vaillanti, Hypholoma, Heterobasidion, Isaria fumosorasea, Spin ochiordodes tellinii, Ophocord yceps unilateralis, Claviceps purpurea?

T.K.: These are the Latin names for fungi and moulds that inhabit damp and dark places. What else characterises them is their invasive nature. Some can control the nervous systems of insects, others can annihilate entire colonies of ants and still others grow from the heads of wasps turning them into one big fungal monilith releasing more spores. Existing Sci-fi. These names also gave rise to the anagrams found in the book. What is interesting is that during the exploration of Lower Silesia and the underworld, the most amazing creatures were fungi and moulds. They are, in Alexandra's text, the equivalent of Tanatos, the deity of the underworld.

Tomasz Kawecki is part of Issue 17 by Guest Editor Torbjørn Rødland.

Check out his Artist Feature In Praise of Shadow.