“There are places which, even before departure, conjure up ideas of the spaces we will be facing. Although Australia is no longer the Terra Australis Incognita of the past, Diana Lelonek and Marek Kucharski arrived at the country’s border in a similar spirit to the explorers of centuries past. 
During preparations for their expedition into the depths of the island continent all they heard was “There’s nothing there anyway”. Although they made efforts to locate themselves among the fauna and flora of the epic outback scenery, the photographs taken during the trip suggest that there, the presence of humans can exist only in the form of traces taking on meanings connected with a time when it was the forces of nature that ruled.

By placing the photos in a quasi-scientific fashion alongside anonymous photos from other parts of the world and reproductions of living organisms from science textbooks found upon their return, they allude to the working methods of 19th-century naturalists. Continuing their journey, they subjectively adapt the theory of evolution from Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, according to which all species derive from earlier forms. The process of erasing the words from the book and combining the new sections with pictures becomes a way of reaching for the primeval powers of the subconscious which the image can reveal.”

Curators: Gunia Nowik, Patrick Komorowski