Marcin Sudziński | Black Light: Strokes of Time

The exhibition takes the form of a reflection on the image not made by human hands. In this project, Marcin Sudziński brings together strands of material and visual culture that have long defined his fascinations: archaic photographic techniques, beekeeping, the Turin Shroud, and image theory. His artistic approach may be described—borrowing a term from Andrzej Różycki—as a “photosophical” reflection on the relationship between nature, religion, and the image.

The exhibition grows out of a long-term project entitled Black Light. In it, the artist translates the theological and image-related questions of the Shroud of Turin into the idiomatic language of photography, filtered through the experience of confronting death. In the current iteration, subtitled Strokes, (in the sense of both multiplication and physical blow), the artist reaches back to the origins of image-making that precede human agency.

The Polish word obraz (“image”) derives from the archaic verb rzezać (to carve or slash), an action marked by suffering and associated with striking, carving, and inflicting wounds. In Slavic etymology, the image is saturated with a Passion-related dimension—the experience of receiving “razy” (blows or strikes). In this sense, the Shroud of Turin becomes the archetype of the image.

Yet the work is not concerned solely with the cloth and traces of blood, but with the mystery of the image’s revelation and persistence, in which organic traces, plant pollen, fungal mycelia, animal remains, and traces of fire all participate. The imprint of the wounded and tormented body on the cloth is understood as a medium that transcends human experience, encompassing the entirety of both animate and inanimate nature. Sudziński’s metaphotographic objects reveal various modes through which these “strokes” are imprinted: from the very tension between negative and positive, to the uncontrolled structure of light-sensitive emulsion, the activity of bees, and animal remains.

While the exhibition presents only selected examples, it implicitly suggests that all of nature and its physicochemical processes participate in the continuous recreation of this archetype.

Text and curatorial collaboration: Karol Jóźwiak

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» GET TO KNOW THE ARTIST «

Marcin Sudziński (b. 1978 in Lublin) is a photographer, beekeeper, cultural animator, and cultural studies graduate. From 2009 to 2015, he worked at the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre in Lublin, where he ran the photography studio. In 2015, he cleaned nearly three thousand glass negatives from the “Faces of a Non-Existent City” collection, held in deposit by the Grodzka Gate. In 2013 and 2015, he collaborated on the documentary film productions Faces of a Non-Existent City and Profession: Photographer, directed by Natasza Ziółkowska-Kurczuk, in which he stepped into the role of both photographer and narrator. He has lectured on photography at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) and the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (KUL). Between 2016 and 2025, he worked at the Cultural Centre in Lublin, running the classic/darkroom photography workshop. In addition to his creative work, he is a passionate beekeeper. In 2016, Sudziński established the Urban Artistic Apiary at the Centre for the Meeting of Cultures in Lublin, where he conducts educational workshops focused on nature and culture centered around the life of bees.