Sirja Moberg: Light Beings Alchemy

Artist Sirja Moberg's exhibition features cameraless and "slow photographs" such as chemigram, lumen, and soil chromatography prints. The works address the hidden history in the forest landscape through the dialogue of art & science, geomancy, and nature spirituality. Moberg is fascinated by the agency of photography in revealing, concealing, and framing reality. 

 

In the Light Beings Alchemy exhibition, Sirja Moberg (MA) delves into the materiality and boundary stretching of analog photography. Her photographs are a connection between more-than-human worlds: traces created by living organisms and drawn by light on photographic paper. The traces are juxtaposed with geomancy, an ancient divination method using thrown sticks, stones or sand, and their interpretation. As a form of photographic and bio-art, Moberg uses the soil chromatography method, where soil, forest material and peat samples form a visual "memory trace" of the soil on paper. The chromatographies are made on light-sensitive paper soaked with a chemical mixture of soil and peat, moss, lichen or lungwort, creating a round and unique image. This photography chemistry-based and originally science-oriented technique, further developed by Moberg, depicts the hidden life in the soil. 

 

In addition to her studio work, Moberg conducts field trips to the oldest forests of southern Finland in dialogue with palynologist Jemina Djupsjöbacka. The researcher analyzes pollen samples from forest peat, which can be used to trace the stages of the forest, past vegetation, climate impacts and forestry history. Moberg draws inspiration from this ongoing research and uses the research samples as materials for her artworks, the results of which are on display in the exhibition. Furthermore, since 2022, Moberg has respectfully collected natural materials from forests, nature reserves, meteorite crater lakes and the nature of Sápmi for a body of work. 

 

Sirja Moberg is a visual artist based in Helsinki. She graduated with a Master of Arts degree from Aalto University, specializing in photography in 2020. Moberg often works in long-term projects in the expanded field of photography, bio-art, installation and video. Experimental photographic methods and their combination with other art techniques, as well as the exploration of the boundaries between art and science, are characteristic features of her work. Moberg's works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad, such as the Porvoo Art Hall (2024), the Finnish Museum of Natural History (2023), the Finnish Museum of Photography (2020) and the former Munch Museum in Oslo (2025).