A moment of darkness at noon

Joanna Piotrowska experiments with photography’s expanded field through collage, textile, and the sculptural possibilities of image-making. A moment of darkness at noon is the artist’s first showing of her work in Scotland. It includes a series of newly commissioned photographic and collage works.

The exhibition continues Joanna’s exploration of the unconscious through Jungian psychoanalysis, with a focus on intuitive and pre-verbal forms of expression. Layered photographic collages, including images from the artist’s family archive, draw inspiration from dream states and fragmentary memories. Ambiguous images, including rock forms, animals, human faces, and disembodied heads play with scale and resist a narrative whole. Together, these elements create a dialogue between memory, dream, and the unconscious.

In Jungian psychology, this process resonates with “individuation”: a confrontation between the conscious self and deeper layers of the psyche. The collages function as constellations of images emerging from the personal unconscious, where past experiences and emotional residues coexist without hierarchy. These fragments are activated through the intensity of midlife transition, a moment of psychic reorientation that prompts reflections on identity, personal history, and what has been forgotten or repressed.

The Common Guild, 5 Florence Street, G5 0YX