Rebecca Najdowski, the Center for Creative Photography’s current Artist Fellow, combines photography, video and installation to create new spaces and perspectives for the familiar world to be seen.

In her presentation in the Center for Creative Photography Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. this afternoon, Najdowski will the role of the desert’s physical landscapes into her Desert Pictures series.

Both a visual artist and a writer, she teaches photography at UA as a visiting assistant professor for the current school year. Before arriving in Tucson, she produced photographic and video art in Brazil (2010-2011) after being awarded a prestigious Fulbright fellowship.

“I tend to choose the medium based on the project idea,” Najdowski said. “For me, some work just needs to have a duration. So, video really is the best way for that to come across. I’m also really interested in how artwork can be an experiential thing — and kind of creating places to experience. That’s where the installation comes in, because it’s more of an immersive quality than looking at a two-dimensional print on a wall.”

Among other concepts, she will explore how the desert creates perspectives in both the changing and stationary.

“I’m really interested in this sort of back-and-forth between what we understand and don’t understand, what we see and what we can’t see,” Najdowski said. “Part of it is an interest in this concrete world but also what might lie beyond that, that we might not fully be able to comprehend. These are the things I’ve been grappling with in my work for a while.”

Najdowski will present her recent photography projects and explain how the desert has influenced her art. The artist also discussed photograms, which are achieved by placing objects onto light-sensitive paper, developing the paper and capturing the shadows as images. Through this technique, known as color analogue photogram, Najdowski explores possibilities within the art of photography.

“For me, I’m really influenced by the surrounding landscape and the quality of light,” Najdowski said. “I grew up in northern New Mexico, and I think that was really influential just for my development as an artist. So, getting the chance to come back to the desert proved to be really fruitful in making work.”