Metamorphoses

Metamorphoses takes its title from Ovid’s epic poem about transformation. The series features torn and layered photographs of taxidermied animals, birds, bones, and other objects — some sourced from the University of Edinburgh, others from private collections. Kowalczyk arranges these fragments into uncanny compositions where parts slip across one another, hatch, fold, or recede.

These images explore photography as a site for activism, questioning our relationship with non-human animals and conservation. Online imagery often presents a curated, simplified view of other life forms, keeping them approachable and human-friendly. These collages aim to raise awareness that we are engaging with wild beings whose rights and needs must be understood beyond our anthropocentric perspective.

I’m seeking to unite human with animal but also come up with my own visual language - taxidermied animals are mixing with found roadkill, fresh flowers mix with the ones that are no longer at their best, sex is not determined, form is not determined, there is chaos and fluidity releases an emotional response where we can externalise our pain and doubt. Ovid’s stories are universal as we are all the mercy of the Gods (or technology or whatever we believe in), everything of human constantly changes, with our motivations and our delusions too, birds become landscapes and details become scaffoldings for memories.

The results are playful, unsettling, and open-ended, drawing on Surrealist strategies of distortion and absurd juxtaposition. Echoing the curiosity cabinets of the Victorian era, Metamorphoses reflects on how we consume, display, and emotionally respond to the natural world.

This series was part of my solo show ‘Afterimage’ curated by Alexander Moore shown at Studies in Photography Gallery in Edinburgh, August 2025. The exhibition and catalogue are funded by Creative Scotland.

‘Metamorphoses’ are part of my solo show ‘Afterimage’ curated by Alexander Moore at Studies in Photography Gallery in Edinburgh, UK 30th July - 30th of August 2025. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue publication with text by Alexander Moore, in English and Polish. The exhibition is funded by Creative Scotland.