My name is Marlena Walach Szejka. I graduated from Limerick School of Art and Design, I come from Poland. My artistic practice is a personal story about emotions, relationships and what is difficult to capture – about experiences that escape language but leave a trace in the body and memory. Neurodiversity takes a special place in my work, explored through intimate experiences related to my son on the autism spectrum. My starting point was documentary photography – a sensitive observation of everyday life. Over time, I have been reaching for experimental techniques more and more boldly, searching for a language that will allow me to capture the nuances of perception and invisibility. I work with digital and analogue images, combining photography with film and cyanotype animations. I am interested in the tension between what is real and what is imagined – between the body and memory, between what is visible and what is hidden or omitted. For me, art is a way of communication that does not require everything to be said directly. It is an attempt at an encounter – with another person, with matter, with one’s own sensitivity. My works often balance on the border between presence and disappearance, trying to capture moments that are both fragile and full of strength.
