Essays

The following texts and references inform the theoretical framework of the project. They reflect an interdisciplinary dialogue between psychoanalysis, phenomenology, aesthetic philosophy and contemporary artistic practice.

The writing presented here traces the conceptual development that accompanies the studio work. Early reflections engage psychoanalytic theories of identification and psychic structure. Subsequent essays examine absence, symbolic positioning, and the destabilising function of the gaze. Alongside these inquiries, the poetics of lived space and the philosophy of everyday objects become increasingly central, drawing upon Gaston Bachelard and Soetsu Yanagi. More recent writing turns toward relational ontology and assemblage. These strands are not sequential replacements but layered orientations that remain in productive tension.

I. Identification and Interior Structure

Sigmund Freud

(2018–2019)

This early phase of writing draws upon Freudian models of identification, defence, and substitution to consider how the domestic interior may function as structured psychic field. Objects are understood as extensions of ego formation; spatial arrangements register processes of displacement and compensation. The interior appears as charged surface in which identity is negotiated through visibility and concealment.

When structure exceeds the subject, meaning shifts to the space between

II. Absence and the Gaze

Jacques Lacan

(2020–2021)

This body of writing turns toward Lacanian formulations of lack and the gaze. The interior is examined as a space organised by what cannot fully appear. Meaning gathers along edges and in intervals; desire is structured around absence. Images are considered not as complete representations, but as fields shaped by what remains outside the frame.

When absence becomes lived space, poetics enters the field

III. Poetics of Interior Space

Gaston Bachelard / Soetsu Yanagi

(2022– )

Influenced by Gaston Bachelard’s phenomenology of intimate space and Soetsu Yanagi’s philosophy of everyday beauty, this phase reorients attention toward dwelling, touch, and the quiet dignity of ordinary objects. The interior is approached not solely as symbolic structure but as lived environment. Here, material presence acquires its own gravity. Arrangement becomes contemplative rather than diagnostic, and stillness emerges as active condition. These writings mark a softening in emphasis: from psychic tension toward attunement.

Reflection — In Praise of Shadows

Jun’ichirō Tanizaki / Light, shadow and photographic practice

(2026)

A reflection on shadow as presence rather than absence, and on the movement from illuminating objects toward constructing light. The essay considers partial visibility, painterly atmosphere and the psychological relationship between revelation and concealment.

When interiority opens to relation, the field begins to move

IV. Assemblage and Relational Becoming

Deleuze

(2022– )

Recent writing draws upon Deleuzian concepts of assemblage and becoming to examine how objects generate meaning through adjacency and affective flow rather than through substitution or lack. The interior becomes dynamic network; the still-life operates as relational event. Meaning emerges not from what is missing, but from what is interacting.

Reflection — A Constellation of Practice

Margaret Olley / Joseph Cornell / Félix González-Torres / Chema Alvargonzález / Lucy Lippard

(2026)

A reflection on artistic affinities as a constellation through which photography, objects, place, memory and collecting acquire new relationships. The essay considers arrangement, assemblage, intimacy and personal cartography, and proposes The Living Archive as an artwork and an active creative methodology.

Reflection — A Lineage of Looking: Towards the PhD

Photographic inheritance / Lifelong learning / Expanded image-making / Legacy

(2026)

A reflection on a lifetime of looking, making and learning, tracing a photographic lineage through family, teachers, fellow practitioners and changing technologies. The essay considers inherited knowledge, material memory and The Living Archive, and approaches proposed doctoral research as a new opening within an ongoing artistic practice.

Reflection — Photolithography and à la poupée: Translating the Eucalyptus Image

Photography / Photolithography / À la poupée / Surface and material translation

(2026)

A studio reflection on translating a eucalyptus photograph through continuous tone, high contrast, grain and selective colour. The investigation considers the three interpretations as a suite, connecting bark, layering and surface with the material possibilities of photolithography and à la poupée inking.

V. Landscapes of the Interior Development 2015-2016

Traces the development of Landscapes of the Interior from 2015 to 2026, examining the evolution of a photographic practice that moves from observation toward a conceptually integrated investigation of the domestic interior. Across this period, still-life photography is reconfigured from a descriptive genre into a methodological framework through which questions of material presence, relational form and interior experience are explored.

The project positions the domestic interior not as a passive backdrop but as an active field in which objects, bodies and spatial arrangements generate meaning through their relationships. This shift situates the work within a broader interdisciplinary framework, drawing on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, assemblage theory and craft-based aesthetics.