International Forum on Artistic Research
17th Conference of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR)
Submission Number: 364
Submission ID: 431
Submission UUID: 4ee28b9f-4d37-4e3c-a435-222e6d9ea028

Created: Mon, 2 Mar 2026 - 08:21
Completed: Mon, 2 Mar 2026 - 09:07
Changed: Wed, 13 May 2026 - 08:14

Remote IP address: 128.214.156.187
Submitted by: Anonymous
Language: English

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Current page: webform_confirmation
Given name Tuula
Surname Närhinen
Email tuua.narhinen@uniarts.fi
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Title THE HELIOGRAPHIC GARDEN A Stroll into the medium-specific Umwelt of Analogue Colour Photography
Format Project presentation
Main language Finnish
Abstract The project invites the audience to step into the queer and enchanted world of analogue photographs, produced by the chemical agency of plants in interaction with light sensitive technologies. The work includes spatial photographic and cinematic installations that propose the visitor to engage with the modus operandi of various analogue imaging technologies
in their genuine, material-discursive milieu.
Generated by cameraless techniques, the artworks create medium-specific visual realities and temporalities that set out to challenge the spectator’s anthropoid vantage point. The resulting chemigrams enable us to transcend the human sensorium and to envision alternative subjectivities and registers of materiality brought about by the contact prints and the analogue films.
Drawing from Jacob von Uexküll’s theories of the Umwelt, the work taps into non-human perceptions of time and space. The project explores evanescent phenomena and the “ecology” of analogue photographic technologies in terms of Uexküll’s Naturtechnik. The concepts of “perception time” and “effect space” will be applied to study the silver-based light-sensitive materials as living fabrics of spatial and temporal becoming.
The work is part of a three-year research project entitled "Worldmaking with the Aesthetic Apparatus: Tracing Vision back to the Embodied Observer". The research develops an artist-led, empiric approach to study the sweeping repercussions that visual technologies may have in orienting the human sensorium and in underpinning our worldview.
Link to the Exposition https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2484702/3868499
Image heliogr_garden_work_in_progress2025.jpg
Short biographies of the presenter(s)
  • Tuula Närhinen is a Helsinki-based multidisciplinary visual artist and scholar. Närhinen’s practice is committed to exploring the process of imaging. Her projects focus on epistemic aspects inherent to analogue (photo)graphic techniques. She constructs experimental visual interfaces that connect the observer with the fabric of the world.
    Närhinen received a Doctorate in Fine Arts (2016) from the Helsinki University of the Arts, a MSc in Architecture (1998) from the Aalto University and a Master’s in Fine Arts (1999) from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. Currently she works as an Academy Research Fellow (2024–27) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Uniarts Helsinki.
    https://www.tuulanarhinen.net/artworks/selfportraitsnow.html https://w
Previous presentations or iterations of the research Conference presentation 20 minutes talk about the project at the event:
Night of Science 2026: 200 years of Photography
January 22, 2026, 17:00 – 19:00
French Institute in Finland: Tehtaankatu 27-29D, 00150 Helsinki

Presentation: Tuula Närhinen: The Heliographic Garden - Studying photograms, chemigrams and other cameraless light-sensitive techniques
Additional information
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