Long ago, we made the belief that progress is the key to a good living. We bet on development, industrialization, technology. In this race of satisfaction and comfort, we forget about other beings that co-inhabit our planet. We put ourselves above them and their needs. We alienate ourselves from the organism of which we are a part - the Earth - and begin to believe that it is one thing and we are another. We ended up in a cage.

El Crit del Bosc is a photographic exhibition but simultaneously a political action in the name of all the living and non-animated natural elements that make up the forest Les Guilleries and which are once again threatened by human greed and ignorance. Sonja Stich not only seeks to introduce us to these characters, but tirelessly seeks to give visible forms to the voices of the forest. With an experimental series, she portrays the destructive force that brings a slow death. Oneiric images, that displace and disconcert us, refer to catastrophic events such as burning forest, contaminated water, destructive storms. The forest bleeds.

The portrait that the artist presents us is made with the propriety of who is in close relationship with the place and its people. Her images capture the complexity of this organism, its beauty and its mysteries. They transport us in space-time to the most primitive and serene that is in us, they restore our vitality.
The forest is a gift.

But the danger is constant. The diptychs subtly illustrate the insistence of the threats that invade the forest spaces imitating living forms, trying to distract our attention. The forest needs guardians. Sonja creates a gallery of those who speak for the forest. Honest portraits that emanate concern and courage simultaneously. But the wall of images and words goes beyond the showroom. The artist leaves us with a question, although poetic, very direct about our role in the defense of the forest, in the protection of life.

Irmina Walczak