Apparitions: Arturo Pianzola and Robert Pohl

Apparitions is a five-year collaborative project by Edmonton-based photographers Arturo Pianzola and Robert Pohl. This striking exhibition features 32 hand-printed photographs that evoke a human presence without depicting people. Their collective works hold a strange kind of beauty in how the abandoned or forgotten spaces conjure ghosts in the remnants left behind.

For Pianzola and Pohl, long-time collaborators and members of the Monochrome Guild—a collective focused on traditional film and printing techniques—the concept for the project emerged once they discovered a mutual interest in subjects marked by human absence.
While photography is often thought of in terms of single frames or independent practices, this project shows how the most compelling imagery matures through sustained, cumulative explora- tion. Curating their archives retrospectively allowed them to discover subtle patterns that bridged their distinct bodies of work into a unified and engaging dialogue.

Beyond a shared interest in absent bodies is a strict commitment to traditional processes. Using medium- and large-format cameras, Pianzola and Pohl capture images on black-and-white film, self-process the negatives, and hand-print them on silver gelatin paper in the darkroom. Rejecting digital alternatives, they embrace a tactile approach where technical craftsmanship and artistic vision are inseparable.

In Pohl’s Hudson (2022), a decaying vintage automobile rests upside down among trees, prompting questions about the driver who left it behind. Similarly, his photo titled Service Counter (2024) stirs the imagination with a dust-covered vintage cash machine, stacked oil filter boxes, and automotive catalogues left in disarray. Pianzola offers a parallel journey in Table and Broom (2021), where a solitary straw broom is left in a dilapidated room with scattered newspapers. In Two Vases (2026), two glass vessels cast shadows through a grime-streaked window where light eerily glows from within.

In each of these scenarios, what is missing matters just as much as what is framed. Ultimately, Apparitions functions like a window; the views are poignant and masterfully composed, but they are only fully realized when the viewer’s own imagination brings the scene into focus.

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