This time A Visual Dialogue brings two geographically close but otherwise unacquainted artists together. Both in Europe, Julia and Aimilia are strangers thrown into a new collaborative dynamic Julia in a blur, under intense work demands and Aimilia (in a mental fog/in an in-between place???). However, A Visual Dialogue becomes a sanctuary for them, offering a rare space for quiet reflection where they can simply observe and respond to each other.

Julia:
Dear Aimilia,
I've been feeling lost myself lately. Not in a dramatic way, but in that quiet, disorienting sense where thoughts pile up faster than they can be sorted. The world feels like it's accelerating beyond comprehension, and in the midst of that rush, I find it hard to locate a still point, whether in personal matters or the wider world.
To begin with, I turned to something simple: an AI-generated image built from fragments of my diary and drifting thoughts. I've titled it "I can crack walnuts with my own hands."
 It's a metaphor that's stayed with me. Sometimes, I feel like the walnut – brittle, pressured, and at risk of collapsing. But most days, I long to be the hands – resilient, focused, capable of applying pressure with intention, hands that can break something open and extract something nourishing from it.
Let's see where this leads us, perhaps into something that offers clarity or some company in the fog.

Aimilia
Dear Julia,

Thank you for making the start :)

"I can crack walnuts with my own hands” I really like it!
 It’s a powerful metaphor, almost physical, and I too feel myself shifting between those two states. 
I’m glad we’re opening this space, even from within the fog. I feel the same - distant, but still reaching, still listening with vulnerability.
 Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to remain present to life while feeling exposed or unsure.
There’s something quietly radical in allowing ourselves to stay open - to beauty, to fatigue, to moments of clarity or confusion, It’s not a loud kind of presence, but a soft, steady one.
I will send a picture next week.

Julia
Dear Aimilia,
Thank you for your thoughtful words. I felt very touched reading them. I agree. There’s something quietly radical and deeply moving in staying open, especially from within the fog. I’m so glad we’re in this space together, even if it sometimes feels a little distant.
I look forward to your next image and what will emerge from this unfolding.

Aimilia
Hello Julia,
The image is a figure without features — essentially just a staged head, lost in thought. It speaks to a kind of mental fog or dissociation I’ve been feeling.


Julia:
The staged head in the (mental) fog feels familiar, almost like a companion lately. I’ve been noticing how that kind of mental drift, that dissociation you mentioned, can strangely sharpen perception, too.
In response, I’m sending something back that is part image, part device, and part gesture. It’s a little magnifier tool I use in the studio. I staged it holding a bleeding heart. It looks like it’s trying to examine something delicate, maybe even too fragile to fully understand.
I like the idea of this fog we’re both in not as a place to escape from, but as something to tune into – with care, and maybe with instruments not made for clarity, but for attention.
Let’s stay in touch, even if it’s from inside the blur.

Aimilia:
Your image—the tool holding a bleeding heart—evoked a tenderness toward what resists full understanding. Something that escapes definition, yet insists on being felt. Vulnerable, exposed, and still very much there.
I’m sending you a rock, It’s part of an old dry-stone wall. As if it leaned there once and never left. Under this light, it almost takes on a body—present, heavy, maybe even contemplative.
It doesn’t try to explain. It doesn’t reach out. It simply exists. It stands, as if listening to something that can’t quite be put into words.
 I’m beginning to think that presence—just the insistence of something staying - is also a form of care. Not to illuminate, but to accompany.
Let’s stay within this in-between, where things don’t speak, but stand or observe.

Julia:
Lately, it feels like cracking things open has become my answer to everything.
When I saw your rock, I couldn't resist thinking about what it would mean to crack it open like an egg - not to destroy it but to reveal something hidden inside.
 This could also be what we are doing quietly in these dialogues: touching the surface, listening for the fractures, sensing what resists and gives.
Thank you again for this space of thoughtful exchange.

Aimilia:
I would like to respond with another photo where the head is alienated and light. Your photo made me think that I want to lighten the weight of my thoughts...you broke it!

Julia:
I keep moving between wanting to stay closer to the source and just wanting to feel your rock-shaped object covering the image.


Aimilia:
I like the hand, a golden palm — severed, almost ritualistic.
 A hand that does not touch, but evokes the act of touching.

I respond with a wrapped body, sealed, disguised.
The woman-figure in black matter, dressed in bags,
 carries her own weight, the need to disappear and protect herself. Only her nose is visible - the only gateway for breath.
The face is absent, as is the gaze. 
A silent exchange: the golden hand offers, 
the black cocoon receives, endures, waits.
 Between them: the time of transition,
 a touch not yet made.
 A space in between.

Julia:
The black in your image immediately reminded me of motor oil. A material I’ve been using lately in my studio for what I call therapeutic painting. I mix it with fancy oil paints to deepen the visual texture and the emotional resonance. It feels like the perfect fusion between who I once wanted to become as an artist and where I come from.
 I’m sending back this self-portrait I created using a 3D print, then manipulated in Photoshop to force myself into a smile. I get the same suffocating feeling from your image, where only a nose remains free to breathe. Now, I fill that space with the smell of oil and gasoline.

Aimilia:
Your words and your oily self-portrait lingered. That thick, industrial black-intimate and estranging at once-brought me here. 
Back to the ground.
 Here, rubber veins trace fragile loops around new growth.
 There’s something calming in containment, in this system of holding things gently in place.
 I think we’re both trying to give shape to what we feel without making it heavier, or to make it lighter with a smile or new growth.

Julia:
I was drawn to the water pipes and how they gently nourish the plants.
Something in their looping, structured arrangement fascinated me, as if care and containment were temporarily made visible.
 It made me think about how support systems can be both messy and precise. Maybe they're like our dialogue itself.
A nurturing we don't fully control, but that still works its way through. Let's keep tracing the lines.

Aimilia: 
Here we are, at the end...messy and precise as you said, like our dialogue, like life.
This final image feels like a direction - not definitive, but suggested. Perhaps this arrow is a way of saying: we go on, like your lines in your last photo. Thank you for the sharing, the journey, the gentleness of your thought. Within the tangle, we found a way to stand.

Following the collaboration we asked Aimilia and Julia about the experience.

What was your personal experiences of A Visual Dialogue process?
Amilia: Engaging in a visual dialogue with Julia was an enriching and thought-provoking experience. The process offered a space of mutual trust and openness, where visual language became a way of listening, rather than just expressing. I felt that our exchange unfolded slowly, almost intuitively, revealing subtle connections and shared thoughts without needing to be verbalized. It was not just about responding to images, but about reflecting through them—allowing space for ambiguity, resonance, and silence.
Julia: To walk alongside another artist in thought and image is both a gift and a challenge. Working with Aimilia felt like entering into a quiet current, something intuitive, wordless, but deeply resonant. At times, it was challenging to stay afloat. I was in the middle of an intense teaching period, split between cities and tasks. Time for stillness and deep attention was scarce. And yet, this project became a refuge, not because it was easy, but because it allowed me to move differently. To respond rather than produce. To drift instead of direct.
Aimilia’s work felt like a mirror in motion. There was rhythm, there was fragility. Our shared joy in playing with words and meanings gave the exchange a deeper texture. In a time where much of my creative energy is channelled into applications, deadlines, and institutional demands, this reminded me why I fell in love with photography in the first place: because it allows for presence without the need for permission.

How do you feel about the outcome?
Aimilia: The outcome feels quietly powerful. It resists closure and remains open-ended—a quality I value deeply. Rather than a finished piece, I see it as a fragment of an ongoing conversation, a trace of two practices meeting somewhere in between. It doesn’t offer answers, but it holds space for interpretation and reflection, both for us as artists and for the viewer.
Julia: 
I’m glad I trusted the process. At first, I didn’t see a clear path. But maybe that’s precisely the point. Creation, after all, isn’t always about control. It’s about allowing something to emerge, shaped by listening rather than intention. Of course, there are moments when I think, “I could have done more. Or done it differently.” But the outcome is what it is because of those exact conditions. And that’s beautiful in its own right.
Sometimes, letting go is the only honest form of authorship.

How will it affect the way you work, or think about making work in the future?
Aimilia:
 This process reminded me of the importance of slowness, listening, and not-knowing—of allowing images to speak on their own terms and letting a dialogue unfold without control. Moving forward, I’m more interested in creating conditions for such encounters: spaces where work emerges in relation, rather than in isolation. I also feel more open to collaborative, process-oriented practices that prioritize exchange over outcome.
Julia: It reminded me of the value of simplicity and spontaneity.
Not everything has to be pre-approved, fully conceptualised, or theoretically bulletproof. Too often, I find myself caught in the machinery of applications and grant writing. Projects that begin as ideas usually remain there, suspended in theory. This experience was different.
It nudged me to trust intuition more and allow for process-based work that is light, responsive, and alive. I plan to carve out more space for these dialogues in my practice.
More play. Less pressure. More echo. Less performance.

aimilia balaska @aimilia_balaska
julia albrecht @albrechtjulia.de

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