Norton Island, Eastern Frontier Residency, July 2025
During her Norton Island Residency, Sydney Krantz expanded her ongoing inquiry into perception, light, and the thresholds between reality and illusion. Informed by the concept of Umwelt—the notion that every living being inhabits a distinct sensory world—her practice employs experimental photographic processes to disrupt the visible and reveal otherwise imperceptible spaces.
On Norton Island, the solitude and ecological specificity of the site became active collaborators. The shifting atmospheres of sea, sky, and forest shaped a body of work that resonates with her broader practice yet asserts its own identity through its responsiveness to place.
Krantz’s practice is deeply attuned to the entanglement of grief—both personal and collective—with the enduring rhythms of the natural world. By holding these forces in tension, her work positions photography as both inquiry and refuge. Through visual play and material disruption, she creates spaces where fleeting transformations of light and perception become sites of wonder, reminding us of the fragile, yet luminous, ways we connect to the world around us.
