The series of black-and-white photographs was created for the artist’s 2013 solo exhibition Death and the Maiden in Zachęta. Its starting point was the photographic medium, which captures personal, private situations. However, Grzeszykowska reversed the black and white relationship by presenting the photos in a negative version. In addition, she painted her body black before taking the photographs, so that in the negatives only her silhouette appears white, in sharp contrast to the black bodies of the people who accompany her.

This manipulation — of both the medium and the viewer — seems to undermine faith in the representation of reality conveyed by photography. But the focus is not only on the analysis of the medium. Negative Book ties in with the artist’s previous works by focusing on the representation of her own body and its performative character — it presents a kind of intimate diary. The negative–positive opposition, however, depersonalises the body and strips it of emotion, making identity and individuality relative.