Fading Senses

What happens if we lose our senses? In times of multispecies extinction and devastating effects caused by climate change, environmental anxiety is a rising problem affecting societies. Solastalgia, a relatively new name describing an emotional distress caused by the loss of ecosystems, is characterised by a perspective of a fading world, a lived experience of the loss of the present. Described as an earth-related state, it reflects the zeitgeist of our time. A perspective of a fading world and a state of fading-away is close to sensory deprivation. Absence of senses, one of the biggest human fears, can lead to intra-mental perception, echolocation and memory flashbacks. Fading Senses is a research project and a photographic essay where Ligia Popławska examines how Solastalgia affects our mental, emotional and physical health and research the implications of the absence of senses on brain mechanisms. Drawing on her own experience of temporarily losing one of her senses, she applies deprivation to her visual language. Turning her research into a speculative narration, she creates a mental image of an ungraspable sensation to underline human disconnection from the natural habitat.

Portugal is one of the most vulnerable European countries to the effects of climate change, from extreme forest fire events to increasing numbers of endangered species. Two elements of matter, fire and water, are a recurring threat to Portugal’s precious ecosystems. These elements evoke ancient mythologies, symbolising duality of a destructive force and a new beginning. With ‘Sensitive Territories’ I aim to highlight the fragility of the non-human entities (trees, plants, rocks), that are cyclically threatened to vanish from the Portuguese landscape due to forest fires.