Camera Obscura at the Salt Storage

Camera Obscura at the Salt Storage

Camera obscura was created within the spaces where I have been co-running the Wiewiórka Centre for Contemporary Art for the past several years – in the former Salt Storage in Krakow. A building with over two hundred years of history, it has served as a salt depot, stables, military barracks and a bazaar. Today it functions as a collective of art studios, music spaces and non-governmental organisations.

Rooftop, trees and contemporary facades of Podgórze district projected indoors using camera obscura in Krakow.

I was interested in how this place “looks” at the city. A small aperture and a darkened interior were enough for the walls to begin recording what happens outside. Inverted images of bridges, apartment blocks and streets enter the space, overlapping with the raw materiality of the walls, attics and studios.

This work reflects on temporality – of light, of place, and of presence.

Interior of the former Salt Storage in Krakow with a camera obscura projection of the street cast onto a wall and canvas.
Upside-down architectural image displayed on a panel in the attic space of the Salt Storage.
Rooftops and contemporary facades of old Podgórze district projected indoors using camera obscura in Krakow.
Construction site and railway infrastructure projected inside the Salt Storage using camera obscura.