Zachęta Project Room

curator of the exhibition: Magda Kardasz
cooperation: Pola Gadowska

Trophia is a visual essay on the origins of life on Earth. 

This collection of photographs, sculptures and installations takes us back to the Precambrian era, when photosynthesis first occurred in the oceans. The central theme of the piece is chlorophyll, its sensitivity to light and the visualisation of the energy that gave rise to the first living cell and ultimately to everything that surrounds us.

The exhibition was born out of a desire to understand what life is, in order to understand and confront the meaning of extinction. I started looking for the oldest mechanisms that determined the evolution of life on Earth. I was interested in the moment when the sun, a destructive force, became a life-giving resource through the evolution of photosensitivity. As a photographer, I was fascinated by the ability of plants to perform photosynthesis – to absorb, retain and create new value from solar energy. 

The works in the exhibition attempt to capture, through visual language, the conditions on Earth that set the stage for the emergence of the life-giving primordial soup. For about 500 million years after the Earth formed as a planetary body, it was a lifeless period. I deconstructed the conditions that prevailed at that time – cosmic matter, water, electrical discharges, magnetic forces and solar energy photons. Photography was a pretext for imagining and experiencing these conditions, with my workshop, photography studio and theatre hall becoming my laboratory. 

Probably the first photosynthetic organisms were cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae. I found it fascinating that organisms that probably existed from the beginning of life on Earth and revolutionised the planet's gaseous atmosphere, making it an oxygen-rich environment, were living among us. Cyanobacteria have survived every mass extinction largely unchanged and are likely to endure many more, offering humans an astonishing example of resilience. Photographing them was an opportunity for me to meet a species that has risen to the challenge we are now facing, along with the entire Earth’s ecosystem. 

Searching for analogous life mechanisms in plants and animals, I began to study stomata, whose function is gas exchange. A light projection that reacts to voice raises questions about our awareness of our impact on ecosystems and all living organisms, and the importance of our voice in the face of the climate crisis.

Paulina Mirowska