“Photography is deeply embedded in the way I experience life,” says the Galician artist Cristina Stolhe. “And it’s compulsive.” In fact, when she was preparing for her latest exhibition, No te preocupes si no, she stumbled on a photo of herself at 12 years old, holding a point-and-shoot camera. “I realised I’m still doing exactly the same thing,” she adds. “I don’t usually start with a subject or a concept. I photograph things that catch my attention. I’m interested in what’s happening around me, and in the feeling that a moment is already disappearing while you are experiencing it.”

In No te preocupes si no (translated as No worries if not), this manifests as photos of strangers in the street, models dressing backstage at shows, pieces of furniture and fragments of architecture, the ivory teeth of a dog around a fluorescent tennis ball, fruit kicked to the curb, and more. Often, we get hints of the life playing out beyond the edges of the frame, but Stolhe doesn’t give us the whole narrative.

“I’m not consciously trying to create mystery,” the photographer explains. “But life rarely arrives with a clear explanation, and memory doesn’t work that way either.” Even the act of taking a photograph can transform the subject, she adds, taking a specific moment, encounter or situation and removing or changing its context. “I like that photographs can hold information and ambiguity at the same time. I’m interested in leaving space for the viewer. Not everything has to be fully understood.”

Held at Madrid’s El Chico gallery, the show is composed of photos taken in different contexts, spanning both Stolhe’s personal practice and work in fashion (it’s no coincidence that it’s staged on white panels, like the moodboards used backstage at a runway show, and often discarded after the presentation). This lack of separation is part of the meaning behind the title, she says: “‘No te preocupes si no’ or ‘No worries if not’ is about trusting where you are, not feeling the need to define everything or choose a single place to belong. Sometimes you find yourself inhabiting different spaces at once, and that’s ok.” 

In another sense, the title gets at the slipperiness of reality and memory as it unfolds around us. “You can’t control time, you can’t hold onto everything, and you can’t always be fully aware of what is happening while it’s happening.” This is where photography comes in, making us aware of the muddy floors, fleeting glances, and material textures that might otherwise pass us by. “For me, it’s a way of paying attention to the things that are already disappearing as they happen,” she adds. “If you see something, you see it. If not, that’s fine too.”

In a world where so many things are competing for our attention – and telling us what’s supposed to be worth paying attention to – Stolhe’s photos hint at another way of looking and remembering. The boundaries between people, objects, and moments in time break down, teaching us to observe without too many preconceptions or pre-existing narratives. What if a strip of floor tiles or the grease stain on a pizza box was just as important to take notice of as a human face, or a fashion collection? What makes us see one picture as “art”, another as “fashion”, and yet another as just an outtake in the camera roll? For Stolhe, No te preocupes si no is similarly open-ended. “There isn’t a single narrative or conclusion that I want viewers to arrive at,” she says. “I hope people can spend time with the work and find their own connections to it.”

No te preocupes si no is on show at El Chico gallery, Madrid, until July 24.