140 BEATS PER MINUTE

The title is a reference to the number of beats per minute in classic techno music. Jacek Sienkiewicz, a pioneer of techno in Poland, whose works are presented in the exhibition, played in this tempo in the 90s. The word “rave” is used to describe dance parties with electronic music—mainly techno—that began to appear in Poland together with the political system change in the early 90s, often voicing the naive, but nonetheless authentic optimism of opening up to the world, its civilizational and technological advancement.

SEE YOU AFTER THE REVOLUTION!

The Bauhaus is the most significant avant-garde art school of the 20th century. Established in Weimar in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus revolutionised methods of artistic education, creating ‘the new covenant between art and technology.’ Under pressure from conservative politicians, the school moved from Weimar to Dessau in 1925. There, it flourished and functioned until 1931, when the modernist building was taken over by the power-grabbing Nazi Party and this led to the school closing in 1933. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the Bauhaus staff and students realised its ideals, working both in Germany and as emigrées in the Soviet Union, the US, Japan or Chile.

The exhibition proposes to dismantle a monolithic vision of the Bauhaus, assuming the school engendered a homogenous style or a recipe for ‘the Modernist aesthetic’. It has been built upon a dialogue between invited artists, architects, designers and curators, with historic works and documents as well as subsequent reminiscences of the school (exhibited in Poland for the first time). It is an experiment in a communal and critical reading of the Modernist tradition in the context of contemporary creative, educational and social practices.

Guidebook

Kolonie Gallery

Long time collaboration on posters.

Wystawa Gallerii w Galerii Stereo w Poznaniu, 2011 r.

WET FILM

WET is a Rotterdam-based production and distribution cooperative for film, video and artists’ moving image founded by Anna Maria Łuczak, Erika Roux, Marta Hryniuk, Nick Thomas and Sophie Bates.

They work within a spectrum of contemporary moving image practices and come together to pursue a mode of production based on collaboration and mutual support. WET assists in the production of works through the exchange of labour, equipment and expertise.

WET is also a platform for distribution, curating and programming, with a focus on works which question existing film orthodoxies, and which propose alternative (social, historical, political and aesthetic) perspectives on the medium.

The Energy Show

How much energy do we have and need today? This question opens The Energy Show – Sun, Solar and Human Power, an exhibition that can be seen from 3 September 2022 through 5 March 2023 at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. The exhibition, put together by curator and designer Matylda Krzykowski and in collaboration with The Solar Biennale, revolves around the sun and its design possibilities. It reflects on visitors’ personal energy levels, features dozens of examples of innovative solar technology, and poses the key question: what would the world look like if it ran on solar energy? Posters is also the part of the exhibition and presents the eruptions of energy on the sun.

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Tracts

Visual identity, website, prints, publication

This is a bTRACTS stands for ‘Trace as a research agenda for climate change, technology studies, and social justice‘. TRACTS is a COST Action (2021–2025) that brings together scholars from disciplines of the social sciences and humanities with artists, decolonial activists, memorialization experts and legal professionals to bridge current cultural, political and geographical gaps in research on traces.lock of text. Double-click this text to edit it.

Ophelias. Iconography of Madness, Zorka Wollny

“Wollny’s Ophelias. Iconography of Madness, which is a performance and theater piece at the same time, features twelve professional actresses who play Ophelia, one after another. The actresses, who come from different theater traditions and generations, all played Ophelia according to their divergent training, knowledge, skills, and so on. The procession of Ophelias was stunning—the audience entered the world of deception, sorrow, and madness caused by the system of patriarchal rule. Some performed the character as a woman completely alienated from reality, while others seemed perfectly “normal.” Any woman would feel that they might also fall, that in the given condition (of Shakespeare’s Hamlet), they would not survive. The eternal feminine that opened before our eyes did not consist in the perpetuation of women’s beauty or seductive capacities, as in the stereotypical fetish of femininity; it became a feminist Howl of the female personae non grata in the male-dominated world. In my text accompanying the project’s online release, I claimed that these Ophelias performed a structural transformation of the public sphere.”

Ewa Majewska E-Flux Journal #92 (2018)

performance for eleven actresses, 50min Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz 2012, Contemporary Museum Wroclaw 2013, International Schakespear Festival Gdansk 2013 performed by: Iwona Bielska, Monika Dąbrowska, Ewa Domańska, Gabriela Frycz, Anna Ilczuk, Elżbieta Karkoszka, Krystyna Łubieńska, Marta Kalmus-Jankowska, Katarzyna Misiewicz, Karolina Porcari, Agnieszka Radzikowska, Małgorzata Rudzka, Bożena Stryjkówna photos by Adam T. Burton movies by: Małgorzata Mazur

In one place, at the same time eleven Ophelias met, eleven ways of experiencing and playing the role, eleven actor performances. In the empty space of Muzeum Sztuki eleven actresses who have played the role of Ophelia in theatre productions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet performed the final scene of madness.

The oldest performer was 80 years old (played Ophelie in 1960), the youngest is still playing in the adaptation from this year. The joint appearance of the actresses, arranged by Zorka Wollny, was a performance in which different interpretations of the classic dramatic role created an image of female madness.

Centrala Website

CENTRALA (Małgorzata Kuciewicz and Simone De Iacobis) is a Warsaw-based architecture and research studio that works with reinterpretations and spatial interventions aimed at renewing the language of architecture. In their architecture research practice, they observe the relations between architecture and natural phenomena. They conceive architecture as a process rather than a static form, and consider gravity, water circulation, and atmospheric and astronomical events as its building materials. In architecture that combines an intimate, human scale with the scale of the planet, they see a tool that can help us tune in to the rhythm of the surrounding world.