Siar

Siar is an ongoing body of work, consisting of a series of photographs arranged as an installation of prints and an upcoming artist’s book. Taking its title from the Irish word for “west,” Siar considers the idea of choice. Not the consequences of choice, but the very moment of making it: a continuous culmination of an uncertain agency. Through a process-led exploration of two main motifs–a body and a stone–she examines intersections between what can be understood as lived: internal and external; dependent and independent. Elements that are contained in itself, yet shaped by time and environment, neither fixed nor whole. Rooted in analogue practice, the images are primarily produced using negative film, though also incorporate digital photographs taken out of impulse or necessity. For photomontage works, Izabela developed an intuitive methodology where she tears out parts of photographic prints by hand. This gesture stands for a movement that can be equally as responsive as accidental. The traces of torn paper suggest scarring, an indication of what it has been. Unfolding as a non-linear narrative, photographs are displayed as spatial, side-specific arrangements of prints in different sizes, defined by proximity, lines, and textures. By shifting the focus from destination to transition, the inquiry becomes less about where we are going and more about how we are to continue. This work offers no answers. It seeks the conditions in which exchange can occur between points of view, standpoints, and different languages.