Interview by Claudia Bigongiari
All Images © Olga Sokal
In collaboration with Paris Photo, for the past 28th edition of the fair, we had the pleasure to interview Olga Sokal and delve into her work Black Stone Burns exposed during the fair in Paris, represented by the German Kominek gallery within the main section.
Olga Sokal is a Polish visual artist who challenges themes such as identity, human connection, and the convergence of diverse worlds referring her work to a global audience. Her practice has garnered recognition, having been shortlisted for prestigious grants such as the Vevey Biennale in Switzerland and the Mast Foundation Grant. In 2020, she received the Michael Redman Project Grant, which she used to develop the book project of Black Stone Burns published by FW:Books in 2025.
Claudia Bigongiari (CB): The project Black Stone Burns (2025) engages with layers of history and trauma embedded in different landscapes, unfolding as an almost global investigation. Coal mines have devastated entire towns and communities—starting with your family’s hometown in Bełchatów, Poland. What was the precise moment when you realised that this familiar landscape was not just a background, but the very place where you needed to begin collecting material on the wounds inflicted by coal?
Olga Sokal (OS): Most of my family on my mother’s side works in and around the coal industry in Bełchatów, so from a very young age I was deeply exposed to topics connected to coal and its entire infrastructure. My interest grew significantly when rumours began circulating about the potential closure of the Bełchatów coal mine. This sparked many heavy conversations at our family table about the future of the city and what might happen in the near future. Having such a personal connection to the subject greatly supported my research, as I could rely on firsthand information shared by my family. It also added a more personal and sensitive layer to the project, which in my opinion always works in the advantage of projects that are made around more sensitive topics.
(CB): Starting from the place you know most intimately in Poland, your research then moves to the United States, where the mining towns of Appalachia saw the American Dream collapse, and later to England, where you contrast the harsh historical reality of exploitation and poverty with a visual archive promoting coal. Beyond the unfulfilled promise of progress for these communities, did you notice some similarities – fractures or traumas – that persist across these regions?
(OS): Industrialisation has made many of these places strikingly similar to one another. I am referring not only to the industrial landscape itself, but also to the way local communities, and my own family, think and speak about coal. At the end of the day, coal has polluted the landscape and caused profound, destructive impacts on communities. Yet alongside this damage, there exists a deep sense of nostalgia and pain. Coal is often romanticised and associated with the so-called “golden ages,” a time of relative prosperity and temporarily well-paid jobs.
I observe many of these contradictions within my own family. There is a form of denial, and a noticeable absence of conversation about how massive corporations have exploited both labor and nature for profit and advantage. At the same time, I understand these emotions deeply. On a human level, they are entirely relatable – rooted in survival, pride, memory, and loss.
(CB): The entire project took over four years of work. When did you start and how much time did you spend in each country? And what kind of relationships did you make with the people encountered?
(OS): The craziest and most rewarding part of working on long-term projects isn’t the book or even the body of work itself – it’s the relationships you build with the people you photograph. I usually tried to stay for at least a few months in each place (often with breaks in between).
China was the exception, unfortunately, as I was working on that project right before, during, and after Covid, when travel was extremely difficult or impossible.
Over the course of the project, I made an incredible number of friends. I’m still in touch with so many of them and plan to revisit all of those places. Building these long-term bonds has been one of the most exciting and deeply satisfying parts of this particular body of work.
(CB): Throughout the work, there is a continuous alternation between images of homes, people, and dioramas – scale models of towns that were perhaps never completed. Where do these models come from? Do you agree that they intensify the sense of an history built on promises of progress that were never realised?
(OS): The dioramas were found in the coal mining museum in Benham, Kentucky. Many of them were built by children, commissioned as school assignments. For me, they function as a metaphor for “man-made cities”- similar to company mining towns that were planned, built, and controlled by coal corporations. What feels especially significant is that these miniature worlds were constructed by the hands of children.
I photographed the dioramas as if they were movie sets. This is why the colors are so vibrant: they reference the visual language of advertising, and the way certain colors are designed to attract, seduce, and hold our attention. That heightened aesthetic also intensifies the sense of history built on promises. When you consider that these objects were created as school assignments, you begin to see how deeply coal is embedded in collective imagination, and how nostalgia shapes people’s relationship to it.
The romanticisation of mining ultimately makes the impact even stronger- because so many of those promises were never fulfilled.
(CB): Black Stone Burns becomes a form of historical documentation – also through the inclusion of archival imagery – and at the same time an anthropological analysis of a social class oppressed by the corrupt, profit-driven mining system. What intention did you first embark on this project with?
(OS): In the beginning, this was actually a completely different project. I was primarily focusing on my family and their relationship with coal. When the first rumours about the mine closure emerged, I began to look at examples from around the world and how similar events had impacted communities. As I continued my research and explored my imagination, I discovered a large amount of advertising material related to coal in one of the archives in Wakefield. This helped me narrow down and find the angle I truly wanted to focus on.
Through working on this project, I realised that sometimes the starting point is just that – a beginning. As you dive deeper into research and the creative process, the actual narrative gradually emerges. Of course, every artist approaches this differently, but for me, the evolution of the idea became an essential part of the work.
(CB): In your images, these towns often appear almost desolate, their surrounding landscapes transformed and devastated by extraction and the processing of black stone. What kind of atmosphere did you perceive when moving through these places? Do the inhabitants still hold hope or a desire to protect the landscape around them?
(OS): I think there are a lot of mixed feelings. Many of the people I met tend to romanticise coal and the past. At the same time, there is an ongoing conversation about how these towns were left behind, without any real idea or plan for resocialization or transition.
What I noticed most is how deeply people care about their communities and about one another. There is also a strong sense of neglect from the government in many of these places, which in some cases were almost completely forgotten when industries began to shift away. A lot of people are upset about this, and about the current situation.
I remember one local woman saying something that has stayed with me ever since: “We don’t need pity – we need inspiration.”
I feel this quote speaks volumes about the mood of these places.
(CB): The final stage of your exploration takes place in China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal and coal-powered energy. Its degraded landscapes reveal escalating consequences: air pollution, damaged water resources, and a massive contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. This places your project within a global conversation about environmental suffering. What is your position on this? Did environmental impact play a substantial role in your research into coal?
(OS): In this particular body of work, I chose to focus more on the exploitation of labor and on the communities themselves. Of course, the environmental aspect is extremely important and impossible to separate from these places – especially in China, where the scale of destruction is overwhelming and something I researched extensively.
In the end, I had to narrow the angle of the project. I focused primarily on labor, on the idea of what is promised versus what is left behind. The environment remains a massive presence in the background of the work, shaping every image and every story.
There is a deep and undeniable relationship between the exploitation of labor and the exploitation of the environment. They are inseparable, and in many ways they mirror one another.
(CB): Your use of photography to narrate this story across continents is highly engaging. Photography and visual strategies have historically been used by capitalist systems as tools of persuasion and promotion, while today- and particularly in your project – their purpose has radically shifted. How do you relate to this transformation?
(OS): What you’re asking is interesting, because it gets to one of the main reasons I decided to work with advertising archives. As we know, photography is a powerful tool for persuasion and promotion. The same applies to the use of color and to the diorama imagery – the palette is intentionally alluring, almost candy-like, echoing the visual language of advertising.
I was interested in how photography shapes the way we see the world, especially within the context of capitalism. In my work, I like to play with and combine these ideas, so that the project becomes a commentary not only on labor and the environment, but also on photography itself – its role, its history, and its power.
(CB): Black Stone Burns is a powerful title: coal has burned the dreams and expectations of countless people, and it continues to burn through the wounds of cities and landscapes. Do you have any other thoughts or considerations regarding the title?
(OS): In terms of the title, it came about very organically. My former mentor, Lisa Barnard, who oversaw the project from many angles, and I were brainstorming during the ISSP masterclass in Latvia.
I was drawn to the simplicity of the title and its play on the physical nature of coal, but also to its metaphorical meaning – the idea that coal has burned its way into our lives, leaving a deep imprint on communities, their histories, and even their collective mindset.
(CB): Finally, presenting this work at the Paris fair places it within a global dialogue on contemporary art. What does it mean for you to have Black Stone Burns resonate in this context? And which images did you select together with Kominek Gallery to best represent the project?
(OS): We selected two dioramas and one portrait for the exhibition. This decision was closely connected to my use of light boxes and their scale. From a conceptual standpoint, I chose to exhibit the works in light boxes because they have a strong association with commercial spaces, where they are traditionally used as tools of promotion.
Placing the colorful dioramas inside light boxes was both a stylistic and a conceptual choice. In many ways, these towns exist only as long as the industry is active – similarly, the image only exists when the light is turned on. This idea was central to how I wanted the work to function in the exhibition: it is not just photography or an image on a wall, but an object that actively participates in the space.
We also decided to scale the works up, playing with proportion so that the dioramas begin to resemble man-made cities, almost turning into landscapes in their own right. With the limited space at Paris Photo, the diorama images were able to clearly communicate and elevate the project without over explaining it. And, of course, light boxes are visually striking and immediately engaging, which helped draw viewers into the work.
