CONVERSATIONS - PHOTO EXHIBITION

'Completely safe' photo exhibition by Rafal Nowicki

How much can be read from our eyes only? How much do facial masks restrict the way we express ourselves? 

CONVERSATIONS is a project based on the questions above, in which, over the course of four months 29 people of different nationalities, age and gender participated in individual photography sessions.

The photographer invited the participants to his provisional photography studio for an hour-long session to talk in a relaxed atmosphere. Despite the lockdown and numerous restrictions, each session became an opportunity to meet, talk, build bonds and exchange energy, and the studio eventually became a confessional where each participant could freely and openly express their emotions. 

At the beginning of the project, the author was planning to focus on capturing facial reactions of his subjects, while referring to six basic emotions defined in the 70s by the American psychologist Paul Ekman, i.e. joy, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust. The participants answered a series of questions which were closely related to these emotions, such as “what has surprised you lately?” or “what upsets you recently?”

After a few initial sessions, the idea of the project began to evolve and so did the formula of the questions asked, which eventually gave way to conversations on various topics from cooking, to political views or music. The photographer conducted interviews with each person,  wherin he adapted his interviewing based on the flow of the conversations, while remaining in the role of the listener and observer. 

The results are strikingly diverse, yet similar and familiar portraits, emphasizing the individualism of each person, while bridging the differences via CONVERSATIONS.