Hand-printed pictures as inheritance: Jurga Ramonaite on Arctic landscapes and memory-keeping

But on this physique of labor, the darkroom features as one thing greater than technical infrastructure. “Working in the darkroom – slowly and methodically – feels like a form of conversation,” Ramonaite says. “Each step of the process becomes a sentence and each finished print is a story.” She printed all of the works herself, at scale, via repeated check exposures, filtration changes, dodging and burning, and hand retouching. “Each print becomes almost like a letter, carrying effort, care and attention.” The hours spent in chemistry and darkness turn into inseparable from the work’s emotional operate – a bodily act of memory-keeping.

The exhibition spans three interconnected collection. Breath of Air consists of two chemigrams made aboard the ship through the residency, utilizing Arctic seawater, kelp, and light-weight. Ramonaite arrange a makeshift darkroom in her cabin’s lavatory and left the natural materials on photographic paper for the total two weeks, permitting it to decompose and chemically work together with the emulsion. Some areas turned fully bleached; others developed sediment-like traces in greens, yellows, and oranges. “I’m interested in slow processes and in treating time as a collaborator,” she says. “These works engage with the idea of slow violence – forms of harm that unfold gradually and without spectacle, often going unnoticed until their effects become irreversible.”

The Glacial Portraits collection isolates fragments of ice in opposition to black cloth, photographed from a small zodiac boat earlier than the readability of the ice started to cloud. As glaciers type, air and sediment are trapped; over centuries of compression, air bubbles are compelled out, creating outstanding glass-like readability. “These fragments function as time capsules,” Ramonaite explains, “holding and preserving memories of an environment long past.” Photographing them in opposition to black allowed her to seize the second of readability earlier than melting made the floor opaque.