The starting point for Bogna Kajdańska’s photographic series was the observation of states of suspended consciousness – moments lingering between the fatigue of waking life and the release of sleep. These are moments or stretches of time, sometimes lasting hours, when the body, exhausted and demanding rest, begins to shut down, yet the brain – running on low – continues to work.

At such times, echoes of overheard words resurface. Afterimages of accumulated impressions reappear.

A jolt runs through the body – the impulse of overload.

Sleep, ready to take hold, is resisted by memories of past events, seemingly long irrelevant. Fear creeps in – fear of the next day. ‘I don’t attempt to explain the causes or search for a remedy. I focus instead on the personal experience of insomnia and the anxiety that comes with it. I wanted to create a vision in which someone struggling with sleeplessness could see themselves – as if in a mirror’.

In this project, the artist turns to photography in its most traditional role: as a tool for faithfully recording a scene. Yet she leans into the visual properties unique to the medium: depth of field – at times dissolving into blur; painterly motion – sometimes to the point of losing detail. Alongside these are deliberate creative gestures: multiple exposure, modelling with light and shadow, contrast manipulation – processes that allow her to construct a painterly map of recorded states.

These processes are repeated and recombined, the techniques layered and reworked – resulting in versions that multiply into a pulsating tableau. In this swarm of images, facial distinctions blur; selected portraits cease to be records of individual traits. Or, conversely – it becomes impossible to identify the same subject across different guises.

This play with identification offers a visceral insight into the universality and relentlessness of insomnia.