REPORTER
A man is submerged in a puddle of mud or a sinkhole. Only the top of his head and his right hand are sticking out to the surface. Similar to a reporter broadcasting from another country, he sees something underwater and tries to convey it to the people on the surface by drawing in mud with a stick -- the subject of his drawing: a fertile, gentle, idyllic landscape. Unbeknownst to him, however, his message becomes disrupted by his own hair also forming a landscape, but a mountainous and a rocky one. Despite his best intentions, he unknowingly sends a double, contradictory message.
COLD LIPS OF THE WAVES
With Wiktoria Walendzik
click here for full documentation
Monument to an unknown employee
Cardboard box, styrofoam, pcv glue, putty, foamiran, paint
160 x 100 x 140 cm
MONUMENT TO AN UNKNOWN EMPLOYEE
In the movies, laid-off employees pack their personal items from the desk into a cardboard box before leaving the workplace. Sometimes this is a joyous moment (like Peggy Olson in Mad Man) - a symbolic beginning of a new and better chapter in life. Sometimes it's the apathetic exit of a person who loses their only source of income or questions the meaning of wasted years.
The enlarged cardboard box functions as a monument that weeps with the petals of a flower. The objects filling it are an imitation, the bottom is false and as a result this monument is half filled with emptiness.
CEROMANCY
A huge hand is engaged in wax divination. The rules are simple: the person doing the divination pours wax on water through the keyhole. Then, while illuminating the shape created, one interprets its shadow, trying to find clues about the future. Usually one looks for information regarding love, career or health.
Ceromancy
Styrofoam, pcv glue, putty, epoxy, paint, projection
200 x 100 x 83 cm
Here, this person does not have the necessary mental tools to read the message. He or she sees something other than what the wax suggests. Instead of casting its own shadow, the wax casts an image of an ancient catastrophe. The vision of the dinosaurs just before the meteorites hit, nonetheless, is as imaginary as any possible image of the future.
Puddle
Diorama (plywood board, styrofoam, styrodur, soil, epoxy resin, plants) standing on a steel frame
2 pieces, each 110 x 60 x 70 cm
PUDDLE
A useful metaphor is provided here by the Dead Marshes - a location from The Lord of the Rings. The protagonists see perfectly preserved bodies of people who fought and died in a great battle a long long time ago. This is what it looks like from the outside. After falling into the water, it turns out that there are no bodies there, only green ghostly phantoms.
The preserved image of the victims of the battle points to the topics of memory and history. However, it is impossible to talk about a true, objective history. Taking into account every moment in the life of all people from a given period is impossible. Therefore, when we bring about the subject, we irreversibly end up with an image of history.
Pinocchio is a picture of history that protrudes from under the water. It interferes with our reality through his nose and a single fingernail. In addition to the agent operating from under the water, there is a second agent hidden in the object - a magician who performs a trick of sawing a woman in half. The magician manipulates not only the image of history, which is visible from outside, but also its ghostly, underwater roots.
Pokój
Diorama: linoleum, styrofoam, artificial grass, sand, human figurines, artificial plants
150 × 260 × 200 cm
A monument of not getting noticed
Diorama: linoleum, styrofoam, sand, rocks, artificial plants.
245 × 180 × 171 cm
A MONUMENT OF NOT GETTING NOTICED
Located in a barren landscape, a big hand gestures seeking teacher's permission to use the toilet. Ignored, it is resorted to stand in a puddle of urine, a desert monument of those unheard.
Machine
Diorama: linoleum, styrofoam, artificial grass, cardboard tubes.
130 × 350 × 227 cm
MACHINE
The vehicle once set in motion has now vanished, its only remainder - a set of wheels that clung to the ground. The vehicle here is understood as an idea, the reflection of which is cast on actual human institutions, examples of such connections being God-Church, Art-Museum, Love-Marriage. The disappearance of the machine leaves an institutional shell that can continue to exist hollowly or be taken over by a new operating system.
Gnomon
Diorama: soil, styrofoam, artificial grass.
200 × 60 × 50 cm
GNOMON
A statue knocked off its pedestal and buried underground has a gigantic erection. Its tip protrudes above the surface of the ground and is used there as a gnomon - the simplest kind of clock.
Gnomon, acrylic on paper, 42 x 29,7 cm
