Series Introduction
This project was shot in the fall of 2019, seeded from the concept of creation arising from destruction. Over the course of a week, I explored and documented the green rooftop garden atop the Warsaw University Library, one of the largest in Europe.
I imposed one creative restriction: each photograph had to encompass both an element of nature and an element of the built environment. This intersection creates a unique portrait of the human experience, reflecting the juxtaposition of intellect and instinct, logic and play, and the linear with the mysterious. The delicate balance of this contrast speaks to our potential for both destruction and creation.
The project conveys the experience of being within this garden, a place where humanity has chosen to create and nurture nature as a form of healing and growth, transcending a painful history.
Warsaw, a city rebuilt from devastating destruction, mirrors this theme. Its modern infrastructure, including the rooftop garden, is a testament to vision, potential, and renewal.
On a personal note, this project coincided with the end of my marriage, a heavy emotional lens that shaped my perspective. The green roof in Warszawa offered solace and a sense of being held amidst loss and uncertainty.
Artist Statement
Through photography, I listen to a language outside of words. Flattened and framed within the viewfinder, the mundane around me shape-shifts into elements of nuance and sophistication, whimsy and poetry — a sublime language of relational form and light.
In 2019, I traveled to Warsaw, curious to know more about how it became home to the largest green roof garden in Europe. The place I discovered spoke to me through its hues and its textures, its lines and its vines. It spoke to me of pain and healing, death and rebirth, longing and connection.
We all have our ways by which life engages us in the grace of play, the divinity of presence. Photography is mine. I wish to share these with you, these moments in space and time that avail themselves to me (as moments are wont to, to each of us). I wish to share this with you because they arrived here through something bigger than me, than us, and I found them beautiful.
This project celebrates the visionaries—designers, architects, engineers, and leaders—who weave together spaces where humanity and nature coexist in harmony, crafting environments that reflect our deepest aspirations and our capacity for renewal.
**Credits:**
Architecture by Marek Budzynski and Zbigniew Badowski
Landscape architecture and garden design by Irena Bajerska