Riya Panwar, a London-based photographer and printmaker, interrogates whether photography can embody a living organism. She uses unconventional canvases like apples and leaves to create shadowy scenes that reflect her experiences. Riya emphasizes collaboration with nature rather than mere documentation, highlighting a symbiotic relationship among soil, plants, and time as co-creators. Inspired by the London Alternative Photography Collective, her approach is guided by nature and sustainability, advocating for patience and acknowledgment of the creative process. Her project 'Germination' encapsulates themes of growth and transformation over time.
My work doesn't focus on documenting the natural world, it collaborates with it. I am part of that nature, just as you are. There is a symbiotic interdependence that must be acknowledged.
Nature and sustainability guide my approach, not as visual trends, but as mindsets. They don't always appear instantly or visibly; they arrive slowly, when the vision aligns.
Riya can take the cliché of an eye and transpose it into the body of a leaf, giving it a new lease of life, an act of humanisation that is nearly impossible to dismiss.
One project that encapsulates this is Germination, which reflects on the idea of growth, literally and metaphorically. In other words, how long it takes to 'become good'.
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