Alternativa 2013 Guide

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g u i d e b o o kalternativa.org.pl

Postcard of Gdansk in the year 2000; published in 1900.

a l t e r n a t i v a t i l l t o m o r r o w !

http://www.alternativa.org.pl

alternativa 2013

guidebooktill tomorrow! ideologies of city planning and the tactics of dwelling 24.05.2013 – 06.10.2013 Hall 90b

Artistic Director Aneta Szyłak

curAtoriAl teAmAneta Szyłak, Solvita Krese, Maks Bochenek, Jacek Friedrich, Hubert Bilewicz

> places> works > biographical notes

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A city is never finished they say. The making of a city is always connect-ed to a futuristic approach. The me-tropolis we envision won’t perhaps be the one we are to inhabit. The planned future of the city impli-cates all aspects of dwelling: en-counters, politics, leisure and access to knowledge. The Alternativa 2013 curators have taken on the urgent subject of city planning and its ide-ologies as well as the everyday tac-tics of dwelling and inhabitation in it. Locating its practice in the heart of the Gdańsk Shipyard, Alternativa 2013 is both a result of research as well as a matter of concern for us.

Taking Gdańsk as its point of departure but not limiting the pro-ject’s reach to just one location, Till Tomorrow! approaches the subject of city planning as an ideological one. The XiX century defortification of Gdańsk was the first of sever-al subsequent demolitions for both political and economical causes, realized and unrealized moderni-zation plans, which have mirrored often turbulent political shifts. This very particular case study is thus an opportunity to begin a broader debate on the question: What does

it mean to change a city? And what does the city itself mean? How do the reconstruction of the city, its representation and traces of history, like so much composite palimpsest, influence that meaning? How can it be changed today? What is our, the inhabitants, everyday approach to living in the city?

Here the inquiry towards the city as both public and historic respon-sibility, as well as the pragmatics of dwelling, becomes a centre of grav-ity. Today, on a global scale and in shifting intervals, serious modifica-tion of cities, linked to the move-ment of capital, migration, and the redefinition of the idea and location of labour are fundamentally chang-ing our functional understanding of the city. Cities are being strategical-ly re-planned and rebuilt, while at the same time, the dwellers custom-ise their immediate surroundings, reclaiming the city for themselves.

This is also the subject of Gdańsk and the new city quarter, dubbed the Young City, to be built in the Gdańsk Shipyard. Thus the exhibi-tion titled Till tomorrow! Ideologies of city planning and the tactics of dwelling is a show with a view of

the Nowa Wałowa (New Wall) Street being built. Here we will look at the new city centre in construction while insightfully exploring today’s practices and the historic utopias of city planning.


what are alter nativa 2013?Alternativa is a cycle of exhibitions and many accompanying events de-signed to explore new possibilities for art and its role in society. Since the winter of 2010, we have been staging various events. The concept behind it draws upon the political traditions of Gdańsk as well as the new artistic phenomena that start-ed to emerge in the city in the early 1980 s. These were typically relat-ed to political, historical and urban contexts. These artistic movements tended to be self – organized, in-dependent and willing to discover unfamiliar spaces within the city. At first, they explored the Island of Granaries [Wyspa Spichrzów], next came the Lower City [Dolne Mias-to], and now the former shipyard where a new, seaside district is being planned.

Alternativa questions the classic form of a festival, being an ongo-ing program cycle that constitutes a platform for presenting art as well as accumulating and distributing knowledge. It not only exhibits, it

also investigates. We are interest-ed in both, systematic and formal knowledge as well as the informal and extraordinary methods by which it is gained. We believe that contem-porary art and curatorial practice do not reproduce knowledge but offers means of acquiring it.

The Alternativa project comprises a range of associated elements:research – performed by artists and curators as necessary for the preparation of exhibitions and other events; mobility – with reference to artists, intellectuals and curators; production – of new works, new pub-lications, new exhibitions; preservation and distribution includ-ing creating databases, digitaliza-tion, archiving, websites; discussion – debates, conferences, workshops, panel discussions; presentation – contemporary art ex-hibitions, performance;being together – workshops, concerts and other events.

This guide will provide you with an introductory note to the exhibitions, comments on works and artists’ biographies.

For information on accompanying events, including lectures, work-shops, performance, film projections as well as forthcoming publications, please regularly check the websites: www.wyspa.art.pl www.alternativa.org.plwww.facebook.com/AlternativaFestival.

The exhibition staff will also be hap-py to answer any questions you may have.

We hope that we will be able to invite you soon to the next Alternativa.

Aneta SzyłakArtistic Director of Alternativa

Grzegorz KlamanPresident of the Wyspa Progress Foundation

places

6 places alternativa 2013 guidebook

The Gdańsk shipyard

The Young Gdańsk City was found-ed in the vicinity of today’s Solidar-ity Square in Gdańsk 1380 Juvenis Civitatis Gdanczk. However, for more than five centuries nothing but timber yards stood there, be-cause this area, as a foreground for fortifications of the Gdańsk for-tress had to remain undeveloped. It was as late as the mid-19th centu-ry when within this waterside area ship – building workshops started to operate. They soon gained the sta-tus of the Royal Shipyard and then the Imperial Shipyard. A bit farther to the north the slipways of Fer-dinand Schichau’s Shipyard were built. Eventually, both shipyards were merged into one organism, known from then on as the Gdańsk Shipyard, which later also occupied some grounds on the neighbouring Ostrów Island. Between 1920 and 1939 the Gdańsk Shipyard was sub-ject to war reparations and operat-ed under the name of The Interna-tional Shipbuilding Company. 60% of the shipyard belonged to allied countries, 20% to the Polish Gov-ernment whereas 20% was owned by the Free City of Danzig. After the war it was transformed into

a state – owned company named the V.I. Lenin Gdańsk Shipyard. Events which took place within the former Gdańsk Shipyard were recorded in the history of Gdańsk, Poland and the entirety the Europe forever. It was the cradle of Solidarity, a place strikes broke out in 1980, the Au-gust Agreement was signed in the Health and Safety Room there. The Gdańsk Shipyard was where Lech Wałęsa, the later laureate of the Noble Prize and the President of Poland, worked and struggled. It houses the Monument to the fall-en Shipyard Workers, the so called Road to Freedom commemorat-ing events which took place in the Shipyard, as well as a fragment of the Berlin Wall.

wyspa institute of art

The Wyspa Institute of Art is situat-ed on the premises of Młode Miasto [the Young City]1, about 15 minutes walk from the Main Railway Station in Gdańsk, in the vicinity of Soli-darity Square, appearing Road to Freedom and directly by the newly designed Nowa Walowa Street. It is located on the plot neighbouring the city. A building made of brick emerged in 1940. It once housed the Shipbuilding School. A pragmatic, compact body with an uncompli-cated composition featuring typical northern-German architecture in-digenous for its time – the building has a high, tile-covered roof and a simple interior layout. The present building constitutes half of a big-ger, symmetrical concept which no longer exists2. It is situated just by the shipyard wall, in the direct vicinity of some rows of houses in Jaracza and Robotnicza Streets. In the already approved Spatial Devel-opment Plan for the grounds of the former shipyard the main communi-cation artery of the Young City will run in front of the building. Thanks to this location the Wyspa Institute for Art will be seen by the wider public immediately after the open-

ing of the Shipyard’s gate, even be-fore new investments were launched here. The design of the Institute’s interior is a curatorial and artistic concept by the venture’s initiators. The new, independent art institution entered the building of the former vocational school with exceptional tact, with reverence when approach-ing the remains of the legendary shipyard. Its new function fasci-nates with its unpretentiousness and openness – both physical openness, which prevents us from detaching from the surrounding spatial and social context, and the openness to the freedom of art which trans-forms the decomposed spaces and is able to confer a new, lyrical mean-ing upon them. The Wyspa Institute of Art is the first Polish institution of international standing dealing with issues of contemporary artis-tic culture, managed by a NGo. Its character and programming concept stem directly from the specifics of the place where it is situated; from its history and tradition on the one hand and from an assumed future on the other. The idea of funding the Institute is a consequence of an ob-servation that the strategy of regen-

erating post- -industrial grounds and buildings through art really works. This is also one of the reasons why the project operates two-way, representing the interests of the culture on one side, while on the other – a widely under-standable public interest, and con-tributing changing the image of the new city district, helping to redefine it by adding to its features: creativi-ty, inspiration, and dynamism.

1 This estate is located in the northern part of downtown Gdańsk. It is a plot of ground about 400 m wide and 1700 m long, situated at the southeast / northwest axis, along the Martwa Wisła bank. The central part of the

estate spans from Solidarity Square up to the riverbanks; It is about a 10 min. walk from the Main Railway station. Along the estate is a national road and numerous local roads, which provide direct access to the grounds. In relation to its initial name from before 620, this area has been re-named the Young City.

2 In 1965 the school building was half- -destroyed as a result of a gas explosion, which was caused by a defective in some acetylene pipes. Five shipyard workers died and six more were seriously injured.

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hall 90b A new, unusual exhibitions space of more than 3000 sqm, created as the result of an architectural adaptation of one of the former buildings of the former Gdańsk Shipyard, where

once the main shipyard warehouse was located.

The building is owned by Drew-nica Development and is part of the Shipyard City complex. It has been

adapted to the needs of Alternativa by the City of Gdańsk

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1 Archive movies

2 Where She Is At, Johanna Billing

3 Urban Generation; trying to imagine the world from everyone else’s perspective, all at once, Stanza

4 Wild life is sucking us in, Jacek Staniszewski

5 Anyang Women’s Agen-da, Suzanne Lacy

6 Lendlabor ‘from vacan-cy to resource’ , Lisa Enzenhofer & Anna Resch (Lendlabor)

7 Alternativa 2013 Library

8 Natural Selection, Katarzyna Przezwańska

9 Microbrigades, Varia-tions of a Story, Lisa Schmidt – Colinet, Alexander Schmoeger & Florian Zeyfang

10 Shipyard Frogger, Maciek Salamon

11 Oh, Anouk De Clercq

12 Sheltering Sky, Eriks Božis

13 a/ New Coat of Paint! photographs, b/ New Coat of Paint! Facade Studies, c/ New Coat of Paint! Color Maps, Maros Krivy

14 Kinetic light object ‘Balloon’ & Kinetic accent ‘Tower’ , Valdis Celms

15 Reactivation Centre

16 Keret House, Jakub Szczęsny

17 It depends…, Seline Baumgartner

18 Two cities / Three futures: architectural transcripts, Kadambari Baxi

19 Searching for Genius Loci, Łukasz Bugalski

20 The transplantation, Mirosław Bałka

21 A subjective history of Gdańsk, Anders Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum

22 Wavy Block, Julita Wójcik

23 PGe Arena

24 The Two Towers, Ewa Kruszewska & Aleksandra Polisiewicz

25 os Peace Pentagon, Maureen Connor

26 Wind hive, Maja Ratyńska

27 The Shipyard Dance, mml Studio

28 Marches, Lawrence Abu Hamdan

29 At the Height of Politics, Cora Piantoni

30 Greenpoint Project, Marta Rosler

31 History lesson, Zbigniew Libera

32 Comuna Under Construction, Dar-io Azzellini & Oliver Ressler

33 Nothing stops the idea of art, Ewa Partum

34 Working Frames, Ginta Tinte Vasermane

35 Press House, Katrīna Neiburga

works

archive movies

every - day life in south - eastern, north - eastern and central poland, 1936 Julien Bryan

This documentary begins with a quick image of a shop window in a Jewish quarter of Cracow. Subse-quent shots feature the architecture of Warsaw and a Catholic proces-sion with burning incense in the Town of Łowicz, then the film goes back to Warsaw where we can see a cityscape, corner shops, adver-tising posters of a theatre perfor-mance, and a gathering of people. The film also documents the work of miners and workers of a refinery in Katowice, along with shipyard workers in Gdańsk and men and women doing their farm works.

Gdańsk Torn - down Julien Bryan

This archival material was regis-tered by Julien Bryan during his journey over Poland and Russia in the winter of 1946 – 47. The film fea-tures destroyed buildings along the Motława Canal in the city centre – a post - war image reflected in the waters of the river: the remains of buildings with German signs (metal factory, restaurants, etc.). Against the background of ruins inhabitants appear, elderly people and workers removing rubble.

This report on the city torn - down is split by the scenes of rural life in Poland, showing geese on the water, agricultural machines and work in the field.

polish port, gdynia and Girl - pupils in Gdańsk Julien Bryan

A presentation of a harbour on the Baltic Sea, the loading of coal onto ships, and the wood store near a shipyard. Documentation of the streets and architecture of Gdynia; painterly shots of boats floating on the sea and the city canals. Next, shots from Gdańsk appear, featur-ing marching teenage girls in school uniforms, they carry Nazi flags and sing.

poland 1936. scenes of polish daily life in CraCow and GdańskJulien Bryan

Archival material featuring Gdańsk cityscape with caught images of traffic in Długa Street, a traffic policeman controlling automobile movement, women gazing at shop displays.

Frames showing a castle come from Cracow; most probably they were shot from Paderewski Bridge. A part of the documentation fea-tures a Jewish quarter Kazimierz and city squares with passers - by and workmen. There also is a Polish advertisement of The World Fair in Paris in 1937.

Material achieved thanks to the courtesy of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

10 works > alternativa 2013 guidebook

filmy archiwalne cd.

how will we live in year 2000. reAlisAtioN: Jerzy Kaden scriPt: Stanisław Hager, Jerzy Kaden ruNNiNG time: 27 min.

Material achieved thanks to the courtesy of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The film, shot in 1971, presents a futuristic urban and architectur-al vision of Poland at the threshold of the 3rd millennium. Moderni-ty, viewed only through the prism of Corbusierean progress and the slogan city, mass, machine form the famous manifesto of the Cracow Avant - Garde of 1922 but having a much wider impact. Here, bold

visions are going head in head with contraptions looking like from Lem’s books; cosmic material solu-tions (we are after the first land-ing of man on the moon). Poland as a country is seen amidst the rac-ing pack of modern countries who are going to set trends not only in building industry but in the entire spectrum of life, as well as individu-

als’ self - realisation in society. In the background, one can hear the call to break with the past. The mundane and the mediocre slide into non - ex-istence. We are creating new real-ity. In this case – we are breaking with the suffocating petty comfort/ stability of the late GomuŁka era. Being open to the new, in opposi-tion. What is the new in this case is

Edward Gierek The First Secretary and Leader the Polish Communist Party, who has set ambitious goals before the nation.


where she is atJohanna billing2001, video

Completed in 2001, this documenta-ry is a transcending work that takes as its subject a neglected open air leisure centre by the sea near Oslo, Norway. Part of a project designed for the benefit of the inhabitants of Oslo in the 1930 s (by Ole Lind Schistad and Eyvind Mostue in 1934), it is one of the few remain-ing pieces of functionalist archi-tecture in Oslo. In sharp contrast to the ideals of the thirties about health and well-being, the centre was condemned in 2001 since the state was not willing or was una-ble to pay for its upkeep. Enhanced by the provocative loop form of its narrative structure, the film cen-tres on a young woman who hesi-tates on a diving platform and on the minimal reactions of the other sunbathing visitors present. Public and private spheres are probed and intermingled with the camera’s in-tervention and the subtle drama is quiet and low key, turning the pro-tagonist inward, along with the au-

dience, toward her inner thoughts. The young woman’s behaviour on the diving platform poignantly il-lustrates the tensions between in-dividual will and power structures that bear down on individuals as standardized social expectations.

ciNemAtoGrAPhy by: Henry Moore SeldeProDuceD by Moderna Museet Projekt and Oslo Kunsthall


http://www.oslokunsthall.no/are_eng/side.asp?side=89

urban generation: trying to imagine the world from everyone else’s perspective, all at oncestanza 2002 – 2005, installation

Urban Generation explores the emotional state of the metropolis and considers the world of universal surveillance. The artwork collects live cctV feeds from cities around the world in real – time and reworks these video streams into multi – lay-ered visual structures. The chan-nels are always on, and therefore, the work is always changing – it depicts a constant and evolving view of the urban landscape and its inhabitants.

Multiple cctV cameras are ac-cessed randomly in real time to make this urban tapestry. What you see is an evolving, generative art-

work. These images are taken from the city, and they are happening as you see them, in real time. This on-line artwork represents many reali-ties that exist in city space. The ob-served real time surveillance society is reworked into a series of grids. The data that you see is protect-ed by the data protection act. Here it is remediated into what you see, which is this online artwork that looks is like a filmic experience. However it’s not a film – it’s a real time experience of the city from multiple perspectives.


wild life is sucking us inJacek staniszewski1994 / 2013, large scale printout

Wild Life Is Sucking Us In (1994) is a part of the project Wild Life is Us – Dzikie życie to my, which Ja-cek Staniszewski prepared as a pro-ject for a public space, presented on 100 billboards in Warsaw in 1998.

The work is a collage of found visual material, which seeming-ly transfers us to an anonymous, industrialised metropolis. ‘Urban common day’, as Staniszewski says forces the inhabitants to be con-tinually engaged in life situations, becoming increasingly less and less a question of choice being, rath-er, an indispensable requirement, instead. The symmetrical composi-tion of the image sucks the viewer in, drawing him into a tunnel where figures float in the air. Here, a city is not an open space but a container, an urban pool in which constantly busy entities, driven by their weird determination, are on the run to-wards unknown goals.


anyang women’s agendasuzanne lacy2010 / 2013, video installation

Over 100 diverse women from An-yang City explored how female perceptions and experiences are hidden, and revealed, in the public life / space of Korea. The perfor-mance, which lasted over ten days, consisted of a series of conversa-tions located in 15 different public environments throughout the city and covered a range of issues: eco-nomic stability, human / environ-ment issues, school experiences, em-ployment opportunities for women, violence, and the future of women in the current national economic downturn. These themes were raised by the women themselves as their shared concerns. The results of these conversations were presented in person to the Mayor and City Coun-cil in the form of a women’s agenda for the coming decade. This agen-da identified key issues that affect women locally and nationally. An outdoor public exhibition in Hagun Park featured photos of the conver-sations and a women’s room / room of our own, in collaboration with Raumlabor Berlin’s “Open House” structure, where ongoing intimate and group conversations took place.

The Gdańsk part of the work has been complemented by adding the opinions of Gdańsk female inhabitants and female ur-ban activists.

A Project by Suzanne Lacy. PhotoGrAPhs by Raul VegaWith: Lisa Kim Davis, Kyungnyun Son, Boseul Kim and Jey HwangtechNicAl suPPort from: Ki Peum Lee, Chansu Shin, Keipung Sound Company, BowHaus Studio, Dai Nam Kim A perfor-mance piece for the Anyang Public Art Project, 2010 curAteD by Kyong ParksPeciAl thANks to: Eun Cho, Hong Hee Kim, Hye Kyeong Lee, Hye Seung Kim, Hak Hee Kim, Jae Seon Lee, Jeong Rye Park, Hyun Joo Song, Chun Hee Song, Jeong Wook Sohn, Seon Hwa Kim, Joeng Hee Han, Hye Hwa ShimeXhibitioN suPPort by: Megan Sallabedra, Marina Pinsky and Peter Kirby


lendlabor “from vacancy to resource”lisa enzenhofer & anna resch (lendlabor)2012

100% recycling first, (only) then rebuilding. The issue of vacancy in cities is exemplified in this thesis using a part of the Lend district in Graz. The objective is the creation of a vacancy catalogue through field studies and inspection of the sites from various perspectives, based on the working hypothesis There is a vacancy in Lend , in order to enable a discussion of innovative and forward – looking ways for re-gional restructuring and the city as a resource. Lendlabour is supposed to illustrate the significance of the availability of data concerning va-cancy in order to enable the areas to be recycled. From the empiri-cal approximation to the laborato-ry, factors from economy, sociolo-gy, history and the current vacancy discussion in Europe were included in order to recognize existent po-tentials in the city’s structure and hence to combine new synergies for the useful reactivation of vacan-

cies in scenarios. The opportuni-ty to connect the individual blocks of vacancy, economic and social interests expands our comprehen-sion of design to the social / human dimension.

Work is presented in collaboration with Austrian Cultural Forum in Warsaw


alternativa 2013 library

In the drudgery of searching through flea markets and chain – store sales, I have been looking for a key to the Till Tomorrow! library of commonplace ideas, old and brand – new utopias, and mutual-ly suppressing architectural trends. I have to be exceptionally careful not to stamp on the basics: how you do cope with a suddenly leaking tap? Which flowers would best suit a glazed balcony? Which way is best for an urban trip? And, first of all, the eternal question: how to pass the time? (and what for?)


natural selection kaTarzyna przezwańska 2011, installation (various materials)

A table, which is an autonomous work, a piece of exposition furni-ture and an exhibition at the same time; Przezwańska has put her fin-ished works (most of all works in-spired by nature) on a table, as well as her inspirations, spatial sketch-es and models of potential projects. National Selection is a sort of labo-ratory, which reveals Przezwańska’s creative method to the public. For the artist herself, the Desk is also an attempt to summarize her past works.

source: webpage of Kolonie Gallery, www.galeriakolonie.pl


http://www.galeriakolonie.pl/

microbrigades, variations of a storylisa schmidt – colinet, alexander schmoeger & florian zeyfang2012, installation

In 1971 the first microbrigades were formed to counteract the tre-mendous housing deficit in Cuba. Groups of workers were pulled from ordinary enterprises and commis-sioned to construct four- or five – story apartment blocks, which were distributed according to the needs of workers and their merits within their respective organisations. To in-volve non – professionals in the field of construction, prefabricated ele-ments had to be adapted to systems combining them with manually assembled parts. Though standard types of buildings were developed and constructed with only small variations, complex neighborhoods were produced which are today highly specific and very different from each other. Between 1971 and 1975 the microbrigades boosted housing supply by finishing 20.000 units per year, until the deficiency of building materials slowed down production and the government reduced the program in 1978. But until today several attempts were undertaken to re – activate the in-triguing concept of housing built by the people.


shipyard froggermaciek salamon 2013, computer game

Shipyard Frogger is a modern com-puter game based on the original Atari Frogger game from 1981.

As in the case of the original, the idea is to help a hero – frog to get to the other side of the highway. This time it’s New Wall Street in Gdansk, which according to the City of Gdansk’s official conception, will separate the shipyard area from the Old Town.

ProGrAmmer: Mateusz Wojczal

LEVEL 1 score:


ohanouk de clercq 2012, video

Oh seeks to reanimate the ambi-tious, utopian spirit of renegade architect Etienne – Louis Boullée (1728 –1799). True to the spirit of the utopian architectural tradition Boullée is part of, he is probably best remembered today for one unrealized project in particular: the design for a gigantic sphere – shaped shrine dedicated to one of the founding fathers of modern science, Isaac Newton (1784). Al-though the historical reference to an unrealized architectural project adds a nostalgic, melancholic twist to Oh, De Clercq nevertheless stays true to her well – documented pas-sion for images of futurity. Oh sees the continuation of De Clercq’s sin-gular ‘poétique de l’espace’ – a rich-ly textured visual investigation of the allegorical tension between in-side and outside, real and imaginary (‘virtual’), two- and three – dimen-sional, analogue and digital, im-mensity and intimacy.

Oh received a special mention at Videomedeja Festival 2011 c.s.

ANimAtioN: Tom Kluyskens souND: Anton Aeki Acoustics: Johan Vandermaelen ProDuceD by: Auguste Orts With the support of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund, cerA Partners in Art, m hkA, scAm*Brouillon d’un rêve numérique


http://www.cera.be/Functional/LanguageChoice.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2FDefault.aspx

sheltering skyeriks Božis 2008, installation

Suspended ceilings, laminated flooring, plastic windows, fluores-cent lamps- a counterfeit kit for what you need in real life. Doesn’t this hanging ceiling remind you of the sheltering sky protecting your comfort zone while also referring to the atmosphere created by Bertoluc-ci’s film of the same name?


During the last decade, housing es-tates in Central and Eastern Europe have been covered in a flamboyant and patchwork mixture of yellow, orange, pink, violet and green col-ours. The contrast between grey and colourful is of a particular interest

for the New Coat of Paint project. In the everyday language of the post – Socialist era, housing estates and prefabs have been described as grey . The meaning of greyness bears implicitly negative connotations – anonymity, boredom and desolation.

In this context, colourful façades embody the promise of happiness, which is to be found in the ideals of architectural variety, diversity and singularity. But is today’s utopia nothing more than the undoing of the utopia of modernist and post –

war times, the colours undoing the greys, the ideals of singularity un-doing the ideals of collectivity?

maros krivya/ new coat of paint

photographs 2010 – 2013, lambda print,

mounted on dibond

b/ new coat of paint facade studies

2013, inkjet print, pencil drawing

c/ new coat of paint color maps

2013, inkjet print, pencil drawing


kinetic light obJect ‘balloon’ & kinetic accent ‘tower’vladis celms 1978, photo – montage

Valdis Celms’ photo-montages – ar-chitectural proposals Kinetic light object ‘Balloon’ and Kinetic accent ‘Tower’ (both 1978) are striking ex-amples of such visionary architec-ture. Tower plays with the authors’ repeatedly used motif – that of the positron, which acts as a verti-cal accent in which the city space becomes the organizing compo-nent and contains multifunction-al meanings. Balloon, as a giant light object in the sky, suggests, in a similar way, an orientation in the suburban space where all differ-ences are reduced to a monotonous environment. Its aesthetic function can be interchanged with the func-tional – the balloon can also become an informative platform projecting news or the information relevant to the city.


reactivation centre

The objective of this project was to encourage local society to work out the basic principles of space forma-tion in the Gdańsk downtown area. The activities comprised the diag-nosis of problems in the central dis-trict of Śródmieście, finding ways to solve them, and outlined directions for the development of this strate-gic area of the city with the active participation of the local society and all potential stakeholders of the district’s development.

The situation of Gdańsk’s Down-town, i.e. Śródmieście is rath-er particular when set against the background of other big centres in Poland. 90% of the developed tissue of the area was demolished as a re-sult of the 2nd World War, this was followed by a huge replacement of inhabitants, who were almost to-tally new settlers after the war. The rebuilding of the Downtown was, for political reasons, realised in the form of a workers’ residential area the culturally most precious part of the Main Town (Główne Miasto) was reconstructed in a historicist vein, preserving a former urban arrange-ment to a large degree. The adapted concept for rebuilding and the po-

litical and economic realities of that time deprived the centre of Gdańsk much of its downtown character and functions, which were subsequently dispersed as a result of the creation of the Three – Cities agglomeration. The spatial marginalisation of this district was additionally aggravated by the introduction of large tran-sit arteries across the area and the withdrawal of public transportation which ceased to serve the district.

All these factors generated series of disputes about, conflicts around and contradictions in the percep-tion of the Śródmieście space. The Centrum Reaktywacji project is an attempt to solve these disputes and determine a common vision of development, as well as the answer to the question: Which direction should the area follow in accord-ance with its inhabitants’ collective will?

10 workshops have been organ-ised within the framework of the project, in which c. 200 inhabit-ants and representatives of numer-ous organisations and institutions active in the area have participat-ed. A joint document of more than 100 pages was worked out and its conclusions were presented to local authorities and self – government units responsible for the shaping of Śródmieście.


keret houseJakuB szCzęsny 2012, wood (the model), steel, ploycarbonate panels, sandwich panels, and others (the building)

Keret House, a micro – habitat ded-icated to writer Etgar Keret and an artist – in – residency place built as a temporary art installation. Located in a narrow gap between two buildings on the edge of the small and big Ghetto in Warsaw it provided just 14 m2 of useful space with all the necessary functions provided. The structure plays a role as a bonding element: physically, by linking neighbour buildings and symbolically, by reconnecting the writer, whose family perished in the Ghetto, with contemporary Warsaw.

A mock – up of the installation Keret House with two adjacent buildings. Scale 1:50.

mock - uP mADe by: Kuba Morkowski, Adam Perka.courtesy: Polish Modern Art Foundation.

The project was realised thanks to the financial support of the capital city of Warsaw.


it depends…seline baumgartner2008, photographic series

It Depends… is the title of an artis-tic project by the Swiss female art-ist Seline Baumgartner, carried out during her three – month residency at Wyspa Art Institute in the sum-mer of 2008 when she was learning about the city, doing research on its historical, social and political changes.

As a result of that research, she created a piece referring to the pre-fabricated residential districts of the 1960 s and 1970s in Gdańsk. Le Corbusieur was an important figure

who influenced the shape of these modern housing estates he had once claimed that a house is a machine for living. His Modulor (proportion-ally based on the measurements of human body) proved to be the ideal design for living space units in these buildings.

This involved the use of prefab-ricated plates – a simple and cheap construction element permitting a faster construction of multi – sto-rey buildings – meant that numer-ous families could be accommo-

dated in a relatively small area, thereby freeing up more area for greenery.

Baumgartner became concerned with grasping the relation between the inhabitants of the blocks of flats and their sense of loneliness and / or the feeling that they shared in a large commune. She concen-trated on their subjective attitude to the architectural structure of their flats and blocks, and the personal ties they formed with their private territories, which is what a flat rep-

resents. These standard blocks in prefabricated housing estates, were created on a mass scale in house factories, such as Gdańsk Factory of Houses “Kokoszki” , have for years been subject to small interventions, such as the glazing of balconies, the introduction of colours, decorative potted plants placed out on balco-nies, all of which are manifestations of people’s individual tastes, as well as their need to add warmth and individualise the small living spac-es, in which standardisation had embraced the proportions of the flats giving them similar, segment-ed bookshelves and cupboards, and leisure furniture. Today, these huge areas of blocks of flats continue to be a mosaic of manifested individu-alism, contradicting the aesthetical conception of uniformly large archi-tectural objects – a rebellion against the ideals of standardisation.

The project was carried out in co – operation with ProHelvetia.


two cities / three futures: architectural transcripts kadambari baxi2010 – 2013 , video – installation

Two cities / Three futures: archi-tectural transcripts is an audio – visual montage reinterpreting two monumental sites: the cst station in Mumbai and ground zero in New York. Current photos contrasting under – construction, in – conserva-tion, disrepair or status quo archi-tecture are embedded within videos that incite one to look twice. With an expansive historical view films and images are collated and re – scripted to look back over new and old architecture; public relations and propaganda; heritage, memory and memorial industry; rebuilding & reconstruction. Using updat-ed montage techniques the project fluctuates between a documentary

and a scrapbook, a public relations brochure and an opinionated blog. Three unusual architectural tours are interspersed that posit con-flicting realities and the collective dreams of global cities simultane-ously in crisis and transformation. At times the tour takes the form of something that indicts architecture with outrage at its failures. Other times it re – inscribes architecture with ideas for possible redirections. In the end what emerges is a way to see architecture in relation to multi-ple other ways.


searching for genius loci Łukasz BuGalski 2013, presentation

Towns and cities have evolved and been shaped for hundreds of years; exposed to various urban factors. Over this period many overlap-ping strata have conditioned them: geographical, landscape – related, historical, cultural, social, symbol-ic, as well as customary and legal ones, and political and defensive ones, along with the effects of spa-tial planning itself. While working on my master’s thesis, I prepared co-pious analytical materials, going far beyond the regular requirements. From this, a story about spatial changes of one of the most impor-tant fragments of Gdańsk came to light, which is worth documenting on paper and circulating to others. This work is an attempt at a reading of a specific genius loci – the spirit of a place, as well as the processes which occur in a city, which create and shape it. It is also adds a voice to the discussion as well as a pro-posal to tackle what, in the nearest future, what can be brought to cities and their spaces.

The work makes use of a diploma dissertation written under Professor Piotr Lorens, msc,Eng. PhD, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Archi-tecture of the Gdańsk University of Technology.


the transplantationMirosŁaw BaŁka2013, in – situ intervention

In his latest work, Mirosław Bałka interferes with the actual space of the Gdańsk Shipyard, which once was part and parcel of a modernist myth of productivity and industrial-isation. It is here, where the biggest changes in the city have occurred, and that hasn’t yet become a con-struction site, but is more of a suc-cessive demolition of the historical tissue of the city’s industrial dis-trict. Bałka installs Perspex replace-ments of broken, missing, corroded or simply stolen downpipes of Ship-yard buildings. Like their prede-cessors they also maintain the same function of carrying water down-ward from gutters but…they are invisible. This transparency com-plicates matters for any would – be ardent scrap – metal collector who is determined to remove anything he can find. The artist’s intervention even reaches as far as a stolen met-al pipe which was cut off from the building of the Wyspa Art Institute in the time when the artist visited Gdańsk.

The Transplantation is intended to allude to the symbolism of glass houses – a key motif in Stefan Żer-omski’s novel Przedwiośnie. This

book was written in response to the important political moments of the first dozen years of the 20th century, including Poland’s regained inde-pendence and the country’s recovery after the ruination of the war, along with the revolutionary movements and people’s forced migrations. It is also a presentation of modernist ide-als which Severyn Baryka implant-ed in his son Cezary, hoping that his son would return to his homeland and commit himself to building its’ future. He convinces his son that his friend had built a factory of glass houses on the coast, reclaimed by Poland after the Treaty of Versailles. Those houses were, as we would call them today – ecological. They effi-ciently used solar and water energies in sustainable ways; the transpar-ent houses of happy people. This is probably one of the strongest met-aphors of 20th century Polish liter-ature. Here, the grand narrative of that time is reflected as if in a single drop of water: a big modernisation plan, revolution as a method for in-stalling justice, equality and well – being in the country. It is also one of the reasons why the Żeromski’s imagined placement of glass houses


is in the coastal area – an important industrial centre of the ‘new’ Poland. A city, in turn, is pre – fabricated, ready – made and ideally planned. The urban utopia – the lens – focus-ing dreams of a regained country not only politically but jointly – socially and economically, too. As we know, Cezary Baryka failed to find this city on his return to Poland. Therefore, when we talk about glass houses we are talking about a local idiom of disappointed ideals.

In a sense, Żeromski, thanks to the energy of his metaphor, shows the influence of matter upon the definition of ideological reality. Ma-terials are not only the object and product of technology but, above all, the significance which defines a city, its message and the moods of those who abide in it. And what kind of city is possible? A city of participatory compromise? Archi-tecturally dominant? One of politi-cal will?

These buildings where the artist’s intervention takes place, were built shortly before or at the beginning of the war, and are now scarce frag-ments of what the great shipyard once used to be. The demolition of

the physical tissue is an act of dis-mantling the remnants of something which once defined the city on a level while perhaps not spectac-ular, proves to be very elementary. Here a question arises: Should we give up urban utopias of justice and happiness, expressed in a possible materialisation of the city? And if so why? Could not the myth of glass houses be filled with a new sense? a.sz.

Mirosław Bałka’s Transplantation is a spe-cial project realised within the framework of a two-year, European Materiality project.


The Subjective History of Gdańsk is a video dedicated to the history of Gdańsk, as seen from the perspective of Marcin a former shipyard worker, who suffers from Alice – in – Won-derland – Syndrome – a neurologi-cal disorder causing size distortion, scale confusion and altered body image. The video focuses on the physical characteristics of Gdansk: its size, weight and appearance,

comparing past and present events, buildings and people and examines how the concept of scale can be used as a framework to reimagine the fu-ture.

a suBJeCTive hisTory of Gdańsk anders boJen & kristoffer Ørum 2013, video


wavy block Julita wóJcik2005 – 06, hook – crocheted object: cotton yarn, metal construction, a wooden table, 115 × 800 × 30,5 cm

The Falowiec (Wavy Building) is a portrait of an optimistic Utopia. A falowiec building in Obrońców Wybrzeża street in Gdańsk is the longest residential building in Po-land. It was built between 1970 – 3, during the time of Communist Po-land – known as Prl , in the time of a housing shortage, when house – building was a priority. A monstrous building was erected, becoming something impossible for a human to embrace. Numbers speak for themselves: 850 metres in length, 16 entrances, about 6000 inhabitants (the size of a county), and 11 storeys plus 3 bus – stops located in front of the building.

The artist undertook a duel: an individual against a superindivid-ual. The hook – crocheted of the mock – up of this building took her half a year. She used more than 10 kilos of yarn, producing an 8- metre long mock-up-table-cloth. She placed her Falowiec on the table of a height typical for cof-fetables. In 2005, the facade of the wavy building was repainted pink, which in the diminished scale of the crocheted mock makes it look like a pastry. The technique with which

she created the sculpture alludes to the time of shortages during Prl. A hook and yarn were the tools which permitted creative people to make their own clothes and objects of everyday use.

The work is in the collection of the Zachę-ta – National Gallery of Art

Photo by Jacek Niegoda


pge arena

The decision to organise the Euro Cup in Poland and Ukraine un-leashed a real eruption of desires and hopes, some of which were also linked to the building of the new stadiums. Notwithstanding sport achievements, the PGe Arena Gdańsk remains the most beau-tiful sports object in this part of Europe. Built between the years 2008 – 2011, the stadium is supposed to reflect the history and charac-ter of Gdańsk. The sheathing of the construction is made of 18.000 polycarbonate plates in six hues of yellow which evoke associa-tions with amber, while the gird-ers of the construction look like a ship’s framing. Thus, the stadium makes references to Gdańsk ’s past as a port, it is a notation of memo-ry; simultaneously, its architecture constitutes a conspicuous outlook to the future. The stadium, as Joanna Warsza says1 , is more of a machine than a building, being the node for car traffic, energy and media. The function of this construction is to

1 J. Warsza, “Miejsce, którego nie było” [in:] Stadion X – miejsce, którego nie było. Reader, ed. J. Warsza, Warszawa 2009, p.11.

streamline moving people, concom-itantly making a presentation of suitable consumer goods – in this case related to sport. This techno-cratic machine is a high – perfor-mance unit which, next to its sports functions, ensures comprehensive leisure services and entertainment. The operation of the Arena is sub-ordinated to the supreme goal of the profitability of sport and tourism, along with the optimisation of util-ity spaces. Moreover, ranked among the most easily recognised sport objects, the PGe Arena Gdańsk has become the symbol of the region by virtue of the synecdoche principle; its marketing sign serves as a mag-net for tourism. a.m.


two towersewa kruszewska & aleksandra polisiewicz (aleka polis)2013, 3d animation

What does looking at actually mean? If we use this word to name the act of watching animation that reconstructs unrealised architec-tural designs for a transformation of Gdańsk in accordance with the spirit of real and national social-isms at the turn of the 1940s, we most probably think of an operation predominantly concentrated on the building and reinforcement of man-ifest relationships that distinguish between Our and Their histories. We – the representatives of a new, free world and they – totalitarian rulers and their subordinate archi-tects and urban planners. What is the most important in such an act of looking is the political dominance of liberalism, built in opposition to the totalitarian power; liberalism which supports liberty and diver-sity, liberalism where one refrains form ethnic cleansing and allows for the autonomy of the urban tissue.

The research on the National-So-cialist and the Real-Socialist plans for the refashioning of cities and towns, initiated by Aleka Polis and continued in collaboration with Ewa Kruszewska, began with a different practice of looking – that of some-

one who is lost in a city and gazes at concrete buildings and shapes, with the sense of helplessness and be-ing overwhelmed by massive solids, strictly geometrical shapes, simple crossings, and the lack of green ar-eas. This looking was more of a sen-sual activity, compounded by heat which, like in Camus’s L’Étranger, makes one experience a city as a de-

sert. These observations have their follow-up in the scrutiny of urban utopias and dystopias, as well as concrete research on the planned transformation of Warsaw, devel-oped by architects linked to both the Nazi and the Soviet regimes.

The towers which appear in this edition of the work are a virtual reconstruction of the planned re-

fashioning of the Granary Island in Gdańsk, accommodating the Gauleiter’s headquarters (1941) and, in work no. 2, the ideas from an urban-planning and architec-tural competition for the project of downtown Gdańsk from the period when the Socialist Realism domi-nated (1953). Aleka Polis and Ewa Kruszewska juggle with these two


buildings, making apt allusions to the two towers from volume two of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. One of those towers, Minas Mor-gul, became the stronghold of the Nazguls, the knights of the shadow whose only aim was to gain the ring of power, the other one is like Isen-gard, converted into the stronghold of the Wise, the Man of Skill, who was training soldiers to fight on the dark side there. Both towers were built by people and both finally be-came the nests of evil. It is just in the space between these two towers that a journey occurs, becoming the space of fight for its participants not only against external enemies but, also, their own thirst for power, authority and acclaim. In case of Gdańsk, the towers with their aggressive alti-tudes, domineering the city’s church-es and the hall, and closing the most important axes of the historic part of Gdańsk, both architecturally and socially, commit an ideological ap-propriation of the city space.

Looking at the unrealised Gdańsk towers, we can either gaze or view, adapting either a distant outlook at urban policy, strictly subordinated to Fascism or Communism, or we

can analyse their architectural and urban preconditioning and confront them with the contemporary time. Additionally, we can do a research on the contemporary embodiments of power, using the metaphor of the originators of the project. Towers have always been a symbol of power. Built predominantly to control oth-ers and to manifest authority con-

spicuously, towers have many a time proved to be symbols of a fiasco, which befalls these people who have forever struggled for perfection, be-ing themselves very far from perfect. As illustrated by, say, the history of the Tower of Babel, such buildings will sooner or later become more of a pivot of dispute and fight; never-theless, as shown by Derrida’s and

Benjamin’s writings, they can be symbolically converted into the met-aphors of greatness, with an element of contention as one of its compo-nents and a tendency to search for union as the other.

collAborAtioN, teXt: Ewa Majewska Words of gratitude to Wyspa Progress Foundation and Jacek Friedrich


sos peace pentagon Maureen Connor & insTyTuT poBożnyCh żyCzeń 2012 / 13

339 Lafayette Street in New York City, known as the Peace Penta-gon, has served as a home base for dozens of activist groups and pro-gressive organizations working for peace for over 40 years. Because it is in need of major repairs, the organ-ization’ Friends of 339, issued a call for design proposals, by way of a competition to answer the ques-tion: How can a building mobilize for peace and justice?

In the proposal, sos repurpos-es an obsolete ocean liner, which would replace the existing building as the headquarters for the Peace Pentagon.

sos, literally (almost) a fish out of water, an imperilled but not yet sinking ship of fools – with passen-gers and crew still foolish enough to set a course toward social justice--this building draws attention to its occupants’ values. The repurposed ship has been rescued from the ship breaking industry, one of the most destructive consequences of globali-zation. With the outsourcing of pro-duction to China, India and other Southeast Asian locations, all kinds of ships, including battleships, and cruise ships are frequently recon-

figured to transport goods and ma-terials between Asia and the West. Often barely seaworthy, these ships are a lucrative source of income for their owners. And their last jour-ney beaches them on the shores of Bangladesh, India or Pakistan where they are taken apart by un-skilled labourers who risk disabil-ity or even death because of unsafe working conditions.

sos mandates that the initial ren-ovation as well as continued main-tenance of the ship / building be performed by Bangladesh labourers who are taught the necessary skills by out – of – work shipbuilders from defunct American shipyards.

collAborAtioN: Christian Bjone [architect], Ramsey Fendall, Andrea Defelice, Holly Senter, Tom Nimen [artists and designers], & George Cairns, of the Royal Institute of Technology, consultant on Shipbreaking in Bangladesh. http://www.maureenconnor.nethttp://theiwt.com


wind hive a study for the possibilities of gaining green energy froM windnozzle phenoMena aT MŁynieC esTaTe in Gdańsk MaJa raTyńska, Co - auThor of The insTallaTion: konrad zienTara2007, presentation of installation

In gaps between buildings the speed of wind increases. There are local legends about gusts so strong one can bend towards it and not fall over, that you could even lay down on them. The wind power station is an answer to how to turn this gnaw-ing phenomenon into an advantage.

The turbines were chosen after multiple point measurements of lo-cal wind speed. They are meant to work at variable wind conditions and are very quiet.

The hexagonal framework design provides an effective and attractive way to mount the turbines in the gap while bearing the site’s urban plan.

The chosen localisation is not only one of the most wind energy- -rich points. Due to the vital and cultural centre of the site’s neigh-bourhood, the close vicinity of city transportation and the elegant hon-eycomb shape it becomes a land-mark, which can help to counteract negative stereotypes about wind power stations and be the new sym-bol of the site.

This was submitted as a Master’s thesis for the Design Institute at Art Academy in Gdańsk.


the shipyard dancemml studio2013, video

The concept of the Shipyard’s Dance clashes two bygone Utopi-as with the current reality of the historical and symbolical space of the Gdańsk Shipyards. The Dance was inspired by everyday activities, performed by shipyard workers as part of their regular profession-al duties, as well as the current, wavering condition of the local in-dustry, which has been subjected to the fluctuation of the contemporary market.

Inspired by the studies of American scholar Frank Gilbreth (1968 –1924) who worked out a sci-entific method for the analysis of basic workers’ motions, mml used a mock-up, constructed for produc-tion needs – a black interior with a white grid, retaining the propor-tions of the Modulor invented by Le Corbusier in 1942, which he applied as a canon of measures and sizes in his architectural studies.

This object permitted the artists to study with precision the work-men’s motions and their catalogu-ing by means of video and graphic forms. This, in turn, facilitated the creation of a certain kind of glossa-ry, an inventory of shipyard figures

which served as the basis for the created choreography.

The de – contextualisation of the original place, its function and sig-nificance of the shipyard’s motion creates a new, performative dimen-sion. The prototypical solo part, pre-pared in together with the dancer and choreographer Rafał Dziemi-dok, is the synthetic composition of certain selected and optimised daily motions of the shipyard workers, done not for economic but aestheti-cal reasons, though. This choreogra-phy, created thanks to the observa-tion on the premises of the former Shipyard and the experience of people working there is not only the archive of a physical and motorized memory of the Gdańsk Shipyard but, also, an attempt at an emo-tional, non – verbal communication with its current, unstable condition.

iDeA: mml collective {Gilles Lepore, Maciej Mądracki, Michał Mądracki}choreoGrAPhy: mml i Rafał DziemidokDANce: Rafał Dziemidokmusic: Igor Kłaczyński


marcheslawrence abu hamdan2008, audio - visual installation

11 May 2009, London

Dear Antonio Di Stasi,

We are very much looking forward to working with you for our event A Time to Make Ten Shoes in the Teatrino della Colle giata on the afternoon of the 3rd of July. Thank you for your interest in this project, your patience is greatly appreciat-ed as I know that we are asking for something quite strange.

The event A Time to Make Ten Shoes is one part of a larger pro-ject called Marches which has been running since 2005. At the centre of the Marches project is a series of performances that take place on the streets of towns and cities. These performances are choreographed marches in which a small group of 10 performers march along planned routes through urban districts. These routes are primarily designed to include the most interesting acoustic / architectural dimensions of the town, connecting large halls, domed ceilings, glass walls, narrow corridors, piazzas, crowded spaces etc. The only costume the perform-ers of Marches wear are specific shoes adapted for greater sonic ef-

fect – the very shoes we will design and build together. Using combina-tions of hollow stiletto heels, thick (uncoated) wooden heels, tap plates and hobnails to create strange shoes that, when stamped, emit a sound that works to acoustically define the architectural space through which the wearer travels.

The performance of these march-es will happen at unscheduled times throughout the 3rd, 4th and 5th of July in the streets Santarcangelo as part of the festival di Santarcange-lo, however, our event in the Teat-rino della Collegiata is a shoemak-ing workshop that will only happen one time during the festival (the 3rd July) and will be open for the public to attend.

During this event we will work together to build and adapt the shoes for the ten performers taking part in Marches. I have arranged for each of the performers to bring an old pair of leather-soled shoes that we can alter. I will also provide all the necessary attachments for the shoes (hobnails, tap plates, heels etc) but I will need your expertise and advice in connecting these sound-magnifying implements to

the shoes. Some simple equip-ment may also be required such as shoe hammers, glue, drills and others necessary for the job, I hope this will not be a problem. Our event / work-shop will last the time it takes us to alter the ten pairs of shoes, once the last pair has been fully trans-formed the event will be over. I expect that each shoe may take around 8 –10 minutes in total (including the time for the glue to dry).

Thanks so much and I look forward to meeting you.

All the best,

Lawrence Abu Hamdan


at the height of politics cora piantoni 2013, wideo

The industrial climbing coopera-tive Świetlik was founded in 1983 in Gdańsk and worked at heights in fac-tories all over Poland. The film shows a re-enactment of a typical Świetlik working situation in an industrial setting. Świetlik was a network of op-positional activists and individualists, a starting point for life-long friend-ships, a laboratory for independent working methods and political ideas. The Świetlik members were a group of people who wanted to change the system. Climbing in high altitude was a physical risk. This was reflected in the personal risk the workers took in maintaining strong connections to the opposition. The climbers I have interviewed represent different views within Świetlik. They talk about their experiences within the company, their support of the opposition, the blend-ing of their private and professional life and how their past experiences form the basis for their participation in today’s society and politics in Po-land. Former Świetlik members can be seen as a group of architects who deconstructed the old structures in the 1980 s and started planning and constructing the new Poland at the beginning of the 1990s.


greenpoint proJectmartha rosler2011, photography series

Greenpoint is one of the oldest parts of Brooklyn, New York situated at the westernmost tip of Long Island. In the beginning Greenpoint was an important industrial center with shipyard, glasshouse, pottery mak-ing facility, petroleum refinery and sewage treatment plant- industries polluting neighborhood.

Greenpoint is considered a home for many immigrant communities from Europe. In XIX c. immigrants traveled here from Ireland and Ger-many; in 1860s they were followed by Italian, Polish and Russian migrants. The middle of XX c. is the arrival time of citizens from Puerto Rico and towards the end of XX c. a new wave of Polish political migrants is record-ed. Contemporary migrants come from Central and South America, North Africa and South Asia.

From the mid 60s. We observe ex-odus of the white middle class and confinement of local unemployed population. Locality of Greenpoint is funded on the lack of public trans-portation and creation of infrastruc-ture for heavy truck transportation. In the following decades a large part of small business disappeared, how-ever, polluting industry remained.

In the 90s. Inhabitants organized themselves to postulate refinement of neighborhood, though economic stagnation remained.

Situation have started to change in the recent years. Demographic trend consisting in migration to big cities is still present but hearts of metropolis are occupied with banks and head-quarters of corporations. Creative class is looking for its place around city centers. For New York this place would be Williamsburg which is now full up. Artists and hipsters are cur-rently choosing Greenpoint. Despite the financial crisis development of the district persists- new lofts are be-ing built next to XIXc. housing, small business thrives.

Marta Rossler as a 25-year-old resident of Greenpoint records changes and confrontations closely and transfers them into the medium of photography and document. In current project she presents inhabit-ants of Polish Greenpoint with focus on people that came there to work and live. The second object of her interest is the changing landscape of shop windows which defines ones image of the district as well as it de-scribes changes happening in it.


history lessonzbigniew libera 2012, The work is shown transposed into a large – scale printout on blue – back paper

Libera plays with the visual mem-ory of his viewer. Consciously, or not, we read frames, compositions, representations, analogies. We know that we have seen them somewhere. If Positives haunted our memory of press photo, History Lesson, which is part of to the series New Histories, makes projections into the future. Yet, this future is told using as a tool all these things which have encoded the fear of the coming things visual-ly. Libera knows that the memory of

images creates phobias, anxieties, nightmares. In his History Lesson, our reading is fast; we’ve known about it, we have been told about it, we have read about it in novels, we have seen it in disaster films.

Several horse – riders appear against the background of a desert-ed, completely looted block of flats. They are silent, upright and tense – perhaps a scouting mission. We read this image in a single glance, this is an urban dystopia, a deserted

world, after a catastrophe or a war. A world where nothing is what it used to be.

However, if we continue our search to learn where Libera took this picture, new strata of mean-ings open for us. The scenery of this photograph is Borne Sulinowo. In 1945 – 92, the place was the venue where the Soviet Army stayed and the area was excluded from Polish jurisdiction. 15 thousand soldiers of the Contingent of the Six Vitebsk –

Novogrod Mechanised Guardian Division of the Red Army abode here. After the Russians left Poland, the town, which was a military zone up until then, was completely demolished and despoiled and was finally enveloped back into the ci-vilian sphere. In 1993, its re-settle-ment began.

That’s how Borne Sulinowo be-came a metaphor for a re-made town. It had a military history be-fore, so the thought of how this fact predetermines its future haunts us. Questions like: What does it mean to reclaim the space of a town? To re-inhabit it? Who are these invad-ers / riders wthat we are looking at? Who are they really? What does it mean today to appropriate, to de-spoil, to consider something as one’s own? a.sz.


comuna under construction dario azzellini & oliver ressler2010, wideo

We have to decide for ourselves what we want. We are the ones who know our needs and what is happening in our community Omayra Peréz explains confident-ly. She wants to convince her com-munity, located on the hillside of a poor district of Caracas, to found a Consejo Comunal (community council). In more than 30,000 Con-sejos Comunales the Venezuelan inhabitants make decisions about the things which concern them collectively via these assemblies. Omayra is supported by the ac-tivists of the nearby shanty town Emiliano Hernández, which has already had a Consejo Comunal for three years. Under the govern-mental program Barrio Adentro the inhabitants have managed to get a doctor who treats everyone free of charge. They also received money to renovate their houses and replaced over a dozen corru-gated – iron huts with new houses. All of these activities and a lot more have been organized via the Consejo Comunal. By local self – organization several working groups have been established on

topics chosen themselves and de-cisions are made in assemblies.

Several Consejos Comunales can form a Comuna and finally a communal town. The film Co-muna Under Construction follows these developments throughout the hillside of the shanty towns of Caracas and the vast and wet plains of Barinas in the country-side. The councils are built from below and alongside the exist-ing institutions and are supposed

to overcome the current State through self – government.

Relations between the grass roots organizations and the institutions are marked by cooperation as well as conflict. But the Consejos Co-munales also have internal difficul-ties; participation has to be learned. Both progress and setback mark the difficult process of people actually taking back the power of deciding for themselves about their own lives and environment.

coNcePt, film eDitiNG, ProDuctioN: Dario Azzellini & Oliver ResslercAmerA: Volkmar Geiblinger, Oliver ResslersouND, souND eDitiNG, suPerVisory eDi-tor: Rudi GottsbergerProDuctioN AssistANt: Adriana Rivas Im-age eDitiNG: Markus Koessl, David GroheGrANts: Bundesministerium für Unter-richt, Kunst und Kultur; Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien; Stiftung Umverteilen; Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung; Solifond der Hans Böckler Stiftung; Fraktion die Linke im eu – Parlament; Bundestagsfraktion die Linke; Netzwerk e.V.


nothing stops the idea of art ewa partum2012 /13, installation

When the time comes for an idea to be realised, nothing can stop it. Ewa Partum says Nothing stops the idea of art, this art the time of which has come. It is like revolutions or other social movements pursuing freedom which cannot be stopped either. This installation is in the vein of Ewa Partum’s projects, alluding to street signs. It was straight away in her early installation The Legality of Space (1971), that she used street signs in the context of an individ-ual’s freedom in the city space. A considerable part of her output are important commentaries on the presence of the female subject in a public space. Her latest installa-tion from 2012 uses a physical bar-rier installed horizontally on roads, streets and lanes. It forces drivers to slow down or else they risk damag-ing the underside of thier cars. Si-multaneously, however, it is a man-ifestation of one’s mistrust in the street user,, who becomes an unpre-dictable component of a situation of motion and change. Partum indi-cates that art exceeds borders, does not follow any principles estab-lished once and for all; it is unpre-dictable in its nature, impossible to

control. The role of art goes beyond any system, avoids all limits, regula-tions and procedures. Time, a proper moment when a great political and/ or artistic idea is being realised is the key notion here. a.sz.

a.sz.


working frames ginta tinte vasermane 2012, video installation

In non – narrative videos I compose and choreograph theatrical-per-formative scenes, which play with the relationships between bodies, architecture, the space of the frame and their limits and elasticity. While setting up human bodies both in architectural space and in the space of the video frame as sculptural el-ements, I stage an existence with its own logic and rules.

Movements are composed in a specific rhythm and become irra-tional and possible at the same time.

The arrangements of body positions are expressive of, and play with, the inner conditions of an observer placed in diverse social conditions, spaces and structures.

With light irony and poetic meth-ods I play with a subject through staged scenarios. There’s a question-ing of who we are and what we do in specific locations.

All the videos are connected to each other in order to create a narra-tive network and are set up in a mul-ti – channel installation in the space.


press house kaTrĪna neiBurGa

neiburga

2011, 3 – channels video

My interest in Press House was born in 2009 when I was doing a light installation project for the Staro Riga light festival. Using 176 spotlights and a custom made light score I lit the dark and abandoned building, which had been built dur-ing Communist governing period as a source of light. Recently video footage from the event was scored for a music video to accompany the music of Gas of Latvia. Since then I have built up an interest in the history of Press House, in the peo-ple who once worked there – either happy with themselves or terror-ized by censorship, they spent an impressive part of their lives there. I have very special personal mem-ories about the building as well since both my parents worked there. During my school days I edited the school’s newspaper – Glasses which was under the care of children’s po-etess and publisher Inese Zandere and was printed by Press House. Its cigarette smoke – filled cafes, huge elevators, seemingly infinite stairs and labyrinths of rooms were my childhood playgrounds. I involved a lot of former Press House employ-ees in this project, from concierge

to director and managing editors of magazines and newspapers. Their stories restore the feel and look of the former days. The work has a poetic documentary narrative of the memories concealed in both the human mind and the abandoned building. A slow – moving camera explores spaces abandoned long ago and greets the people who once worked there. This is a video instal-lation on three synchronized screens with surround sound, what helps to create a multi – layered story, which will let me transfer the weird, spooky and unbearable feeling that everything passes and which is the main impression one comes away with after having visiting Press House.

souND: Andris Indāns


dario azzellini

MirosŁaw BaŁka

seline baumgartner

kadambari baxi

hubert bilewicz

Johanna billing

maks bochenek

anders boJen & kristoffer Ørum

eriks Božis

Łukasz BuGalski

valdis celms

anouk de clercq

maureen connor

rafaŁ dzieMidok

lisa enzenhofer & anna resch (lendlabor)

Jacek friedrich

lawrence abu hamdan

iGor kŁaCzyński

solvita krese

maros krivy

ewa kruszewska

suzanne lacy

gilles lepore

zbigniew libera

MaCieJ MądraCki

MiChaŁ MądraCki

kaTrĪna neiBurGa

radosŁaw orzeŁ

ewa partum

cora piantoni

aleksandra polisiewicz (aleka polis)

kaTarzyna przezwańska

MaJa raTyńska

oliver ressler

martha rosler

maciek salamon

lisa schmidt-colinet, alexander schmoeger & florian zeyfang

Jacek staniszewski

stanza

JakuB szCzęsny

aneTa szyŁak

ginta tinte vasermane

Julita wóJcik

biographical notes

dario azzellini

lives and works in Berlin, New York, Caracas and Linz. He is a lectur-er at the Institute for Sociology at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. He is also a writer and doc-umentary director. He holds a PhD in political science and a PhD in sociology. His research and writing focuses on social transformation, migration and racism, self – ad-ministration and workers’ control with extensive case studies in Latin America. He has served as Associate Editor for Wiley – Blackwell (2009) and was the primary editor for Lat-in America, the Spanish Caribbean, and the new left in Italy, for The In-ternational Encyclopedia of Revo-lution and Protest: 1500 to Present. He has published several books, essays and produced documentaries about social movements, the privat-ization of military services, migra-tion and racism, Italy, Mexico, Nica-ragua, Colombia and Venezuela.

www.azzellini.net

MirosŁaw BaŁka

was born in 1958 in Warsaw, he works in Otwock and Warsaw. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts (1985), where at present he runs the Studio of Spatial Ac-tivities in the department of Media Art and Stage Design. As an artist he is active in the field of sculpture, drawing and video. In his work he takes up problems related to the fragility of human existence, and also to the history of the totalitar-ian regimes of the 20th century. Between the years 1985 –1989 he worked together with Marek Kijew-ski and Miroslaw Filonik in some of the Consciousness Neue Bieriemien-nost. He has had several hundred individual exhibitions on all conti-nents, among them numerous broad retrospectives of his work; from 1990 he has participated in the most important international exhibitions,

such as: Metropolis, Berlin; Possi-ble Worlds, London; Documenta iX, Kassel; Biennales 1 and 15 in Syd-ney; Rites of Passage, London; The Carnegie International 95, Pitts-burgh; Distemper, Washington Dc; 24th Bienal de São Paulo; 1st Liver-pool Biennial; Between Cinema and a Hard Place, Tate Modern, Lon-don; site Santa Fe, Ostalgia The New Museum, New York, 44, 50, 51 and 55 Venice Biennale. In 2009 he carried out the project How It Is as part of the Unilever Series in Tur-bine Hall, Tate Modern, London. He is the author of a monument to the victims of the Estonia ferry, Stock-holm, 1997. He is also a member of Akademie der Kunste, Berlin.

seline baumgartner

was born in 1980 in Zürich, and is a New York based artist. Her art-work takes a critical view of social and political issues. Baumgartner uses video, sound installations and sculptures to carefully observe the patterns and grammar of individu-ality. By radically reducing all the aesthetic elements and splitting sound and image, the artist creates a quiet and often surreal atmos-phere in her videos. Baumgartner’s works have been shown in Europe and the United States, including: Aargauer Kunsthaus, Museum of Fine Arts Bern, Museum of Fine Arts Thun (Switzerland), Museum Palazzo Ducale, (Italy), Wyspa In-stitute of Art, (Poland), Dumbo Arts Festival, New York. Seline Baumgartner has received awards, fellowships and artist residencies in New York, Poland and India. Her videos are included in the Goetz Collection, Munich, De, Collection of the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Aargauer Kunsthaus and the Kanton Zürich.

49 biographical notes > alternativa 2013 guidebook

http://www.revolutionprotestencyclopedia.com/



http://www.azzellini.net

kadambari baxi

is an architect and educator based in New York. Her collaborative practice is engaged in expanded ar-chitecture and media projects that incorporate design research, new technologies and global cultural relations. Recent work exhibited internationally includes Citizen-ship by Design, based on the aes-thetics of international passports; Triptych – Apps, electronic spa-tial interfaces for trans – lingual play; Two Cities / Three Futures, an audio – visual montage revisit-ing the cst Station in Mumbai and Ground Zero in New York. She is a co – author of two books (with Reinhold Martin): Multi – Nation-al City: Architectural Itineraries (Actar, 2007), and Entropia (Black Dog Publishing, 2001). She is a pro-fessor of practice in architecture at Barnard College, Columbia Univer-sity. She is also a founding member of WbyA? (Who Builds Your Archi-tecture?), a recent coalition formed to address humans rights issues in architecture.

hubert bilewicz

is an art historian and academic teacher. He works at the Institute of Art History at Gdańsk University. He has taught at the Gdańsk Acad-emy for a dozen years. A graduate of art history (Warsaw University) and museum – management studies (Nicholas Copernicus University in Toruń). He also has post – graduate diplomas in the pedagogy of talent and creativity from Nicholas Coper-nicus University, as well as in gen-der / queer studies from Jagielloni-an University. He has dealt with the issue of architecture from the 19th and the first half of the 20th centu-ries. He has developed an interest in artistic pedagogy and the border between art and education. Cur-rently, he is investigating the history of Gdańsk’s artistic milieu after 1945. He is especially interested in various (artistic and non – artistic) types of art entanglement. He has written several dozen scholarly pa-pers, edited a book on the architect Włodzimierz Padlewski, and co – written an art handbook for middle school students (13 –15 years of age).

Johanna billing

born in 1973, lives and works in Stockholm. Billing makes videos that weave music, movement and rhythm – placing subtle emphasis on the individual within various representations of changing socie-ties. Connecting the modes of per-formance with a strictly film – like language, Billing in some plac-es directs the participants and in others places a series of improvisa-tions around the notion of perfor-mance and the possibility it holds to explore issues of the public and the private. The protagonists in Bill-ing’s videos all play themselves but take part in staged situations that oscillate between documentary and fiction, as a multi – layered inter-pretation of a place. Recent major solo exhibitions include I’m Gonna Live Anyhow until I Die, the mAc, Belfast (2012); I’m Lost without Your Rhythm, Modern Art Oxford, Moving In, Five Films, Grazer Kun-stverein, Graz, (2010); Tiny Move-ments, AccA, Melbourne, I’m Lost without Your Rhythm, Camden Art Centre (2009); Taking Turns, Kem-per Museum, Kansas City; This Is How We Walk on the Moon, Malmö Konsthall, Malmö (2008); Forever

Changes, Museum für Gegenwart-skunst, Basel, Keep on Doing, Dun-dee Contemporary Arts, Dundee (2007) and Magical World, Ps. 1, New York (2006). She has partici-pated in survey shows such as the 4th Auckland Triennial, Last Ride in a Hot Balloon, Auckland (2010); Documenta 12, Kassel (2007); Belief, Singapore Biennale (2006); the 9th Istanbul Biennial; the 1st Moscow Biennale (2005); the 50th Venice Bi-ennale (2003). From 1998 until 2010 Johanna also ran the ‘Make it Hap-pen’ record label with her brother Anders, publishing music and ar-ranging live performances.


maks bochenek

is an art historian, a graduate of Art History from the Universi-ty of Gdańsk and the Museum of Curatorial Studies at Jagiellonian University; currently a Ph.D. Art History candidate at the Univer-sity of Gdańsk, a lecturer at the Chair of Intermedia of the Gdańsk Art Academy, and a curator at the Wyspa Art Institute in Gdańsk. An art critic, and co – founder of the Modelator blog, he is also an exhi-bition curator: Shoenberg! at the Wyspa Institute in Gdańsk; Re – De-signing the East at VkW in Stutt-gart. Socrates at Duchamp’s at the Wyspa Institute in Gdańsk. He has published in Obieg, Visual Commu-nication, Springerin.

anders boJen & kristoffer Ørum

have worked as a collaborative team based in Copenhagen since 2001. They studied at Goldsmiths Col-lege, London and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenha-gen. During the last couple of years they have worked on rewriting the history of specific places in order to rethink their meaning and at the same time attempting to produce al-ternatives to the prevailing political, aesthetic and theoretical dogmas. By rewriting the common narratives and mythologies of the world, they seek to infect society with new types of stories that can move between es-tablished genres and media. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at Skulpturi, Copenhagen; Beaver Pro-jects, Copenhagen; The Aarhus Art Building, Aarhus; The Flux factory, New York. Recent group exhibitions include Alternativa, Gdańsk; Muta-tions iii; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; file, sesi’ Cultural Centre, Sao Pao-lo; Kurs, The Museum of Contempo-rary Art, Roskilde. They initiated the internet projects: ‘Radiant Copen-hagen’ and ‘Topographies of the In-significant’ and are co – founders of Haandholdt, a new platform for art on mobile devices.

eriks Božis

is an artist based in Riga. His art-works are mainly focused on per-ception of space and urban explora-tion. He works in photography and installation and has participated in many international shows: Next to Nothing (Tallinn, 2009); Contempo-rary art festival Survival Kit 1 (Riga, 2009); Homo Urbanus – Homo Sapi-ens?(Amsterdam, 2008); 11. Ven-ice Biennial of Architecture (2008); Trajectories (National Art museum, Riga 2008); Suspense (Apollonia Art Exchanges, Strasbourg, 2005); Real Utopia (Graz, 2003); The Bal-tic Times (Galerie im Taxispalais, Insbruk; Contemporary Art Muse-um, Zagreb, 2002); Baltic Security! (Arlanda Airport, Stockholm, 2001); N.E.W.S. (Visby, 2000); Port of Art (Kotka, 2000); Manifesta 2 (Lux-embourg, 1998); Moderna Museet Projekt (Stockholm, 1998); Person-al Time. Art of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania 1945 –1996 (Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Cas-tle, Warsaw, 1996).

Łukasz BuGalski

is a Gdańsk denizen who since 2007, has studied Architectural and Ur-ban planning at the Gdańsk Uni-versity of Technology. Currently, he is working under Piotr Lorens, (M.Sc., Ph.D., Eng. Arch.) on his master’s thesis on the revitalisa-tion of the ‘representative zone of Gdańsk’ Strefa Reprezentacyjna Gdańska. Studium Rewitalizacji. He won a contest held by the City of Gdańsk, which tackled the nega-tive aspects of the New Słowackiego Street project, for his constructive criticism of the idea itself, name-ly that the main artery should run through the city centre. He is com-mitted to the work of an unoffi-cial scientific circle at the Faculty of Architecture of Gut, dubbed the “Visual Arts Circle” . He commenced studies at the Painting Atelier of Professor Jacek Kornacki at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk in 2011. He has participated, among other things, in the collective exhi-bition Naga Prawda (Naked Truth) in 2012.

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valdis celms

is an artist and designer and the author of kinetic art and visionary environmental projects in the 1970’s in Latvia. Together with a few other like – minded fellows in the ‘70’s he did projects which contained the most innovative and avant – gar-de reflections in the Latvian art of that period. Not only visuality, but also references to constructivist and environmental art, along with theoretical and conceptually justi-fied design were the basis of these works. Valdis Celms’ works have simultaneously encompassed vision-ary and multifunctional proposals – sculptures of light / centres organ-ising urban space which generated the movement and visual experi-ence of the contemporary city and

people, and plans for utopian ideas to be realised in the public space. They combined visuals and com-plex technological solutions – both grounded in concept and theory. Both his individual works, as well as the series, created together with the informal Emmisionist group – were a few of the rare examples of the actual reflection and analysis of the social and urban context during the Socialist period in Latvia. With this interest they reveal surprising parallels with the Situationists’ ide-as from a decade earlier.

anouk de clercq

born in 1971 in Ghent. Studied pi-ano in Ghent and film at the Sint Lukas Brussels University College of Art and Design. Her films ex-plore the audiovisual potential of computer language to create pos-sible worlds, many of which have a strongly architectonic character. She has received several awards, including an award from the Fu-ture Imprint International Ani-mation Competition, Taipei (2003), the International Backup Award of New Media in Film, Weimar (2004), and the Illy Prize at Art Brussels (2005). Her works have been shown in the Tate Modern, the Whitechap-el Art Gallery, the Centre Pompi-dou, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Transmediale, Ars Electronica, Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement, among others. Anouk De Clercq is affiliated with kAsk, the School of Arts University Col-lege, Ghent as an artistic researcher. She lives and works in Brussels.


maureen connor

lives and works in New York. Her work combines installation, video, interior design, ethnography, human resources, feminism, and social jus-tice. Personnel, her project about the workplace (since 2000), and the collective: the Institute for Wishful Thinking (iWt) (since 2008) pro-duce interventions that explore the attitudes and needs of both individ-uals and institutions. Venues have included Momenta Art, Brooklyn; the Austrian Cultural Institute, Ny; Akbank, Istanbul; Alternative and the Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk, Poland; iAsPis, Stockholm; Tapies Foundation, Barcelona; and the Queens Museum of Art, Ny, among others. The Institute for Wishful Thinking, currently a self – declared Artist – in – Residence for the us Government she is working to place artists-in-residence in as many gov-ernment agencies and departments as possible. Her feminist work from the 1980 s and ‘90s, has been includ-

ed in numerous publications and ex-hibited in venues such as the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York; the kW Institute for Con-temporary Art, Berlin; Mass mocA, North Adams, Massachusetts; the Museo Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; mAk, Vienna; Porti-cus, Frankfurt; icA, Philadelphia; the Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Whitney Biennial, among many others. She has been funded by Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation, the Guggenheim Foun-dation and the National Endowment for the Arts among others. Profes-sor of Art at Queens College, cuNy since 1990 she is now Co – Director of a pilot mfA program in Art and Social Practice in collaboration with the Queens Museum of Art.

http://www.maureenconnor.nethttp://theiwt.com

rafaŁ dzieMidok

was born in 1971. He is an inde-pendent dancer, actor and chore-ographer,. He collaborates with vari-ous troupes such as the Dada von Bzdulow, a dance theatre in Gdansk (Poland), and Yvette Bozsik (Hunga-ry). Since 1997, he has been creating solo performances (Departure – Ar-rival, Separateness, Yes, yes, yes, yes etc.) and duets (with Patrycja Ku-jawska, Dreams of the Fleecy River with Magdalena Jedra, etc). Dziem-idok participates in various art pro-jects (File 01 with Made Inc., Arrow of Time with Dorota Brodowska and Miroslaw Zbrojewicz, Several Witty Observations Dada von Bzdulow, 2moreless trAVA). His choreographies have been presented in numerous contemporary performance spac-es as well as in festivals in Poland and abroad. The artist dances and choreographs for movies and theatre plays. In 2007 he received a schol-arship from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Since 2005, he has been a member of the artistic group koNceNtrAt, whose latest play, ‘Lamentacje’ , premiered at the 11th Body / Mind Contemporary Dance Festival in Warsaw (Poland, 2012).


http://www.maureenconnor.net/

http://theiwt.com/

lisa enzenhofer & anna resch (lendlabor)

are two young architects who are focused on urban planning and re-search into public space and vacan-cy. They are the founders of Lend-labour, which is a free collective based in Lend, Graz. For the diplo-ma thesis Lendlabor – from vacancy to resource completed in February 2012 they received the GAD Award for the 3rd best diploma thesis from the University of Technology, Graz, 2012 and the Rudolf Wurzer Price for spatial planning 2012 (advised by the University of Technology, Vienna). From March 2012 on they have presented their diploma the-sis at two symposiums in Graz and participated at the street festival Lendwirbel, Graz, with the urban art Project Leer(t)räume. Their main current project is the curation of the exhibition stadt.leerstand.stadt featuring the topic ‘from vacancy to resource’ as well as the re – use of vacant spaces to create new ideas, always in the context of the col-lective memory of the city and the main thesis of Lendlabor: “100% recycling first, then rebuilding” . The opportunity to connect the individ-ual blocks of vacancy, economic and social interests expands their issue

to extend design to the social – hu-man – dimension. They also teach at the University of Technology, Graz, and are on the Faculty of Architec-ture at the Institute for Architecture and Landscape as University Assis-tants. From June 2012 on they will be cooperating with the City Plan-ning Department of Graz on devel-oping a new urban planning tool focused on vacancy in the city

Jacek friedrich

mA, Ph.D. He graduated from the Art History department at Jagiel-lonian University; he works at the Art History Institute at Gdańsk University. His studies concen-trate on the relationship between art and politics, ideology and social life. He has written more than 100 scholarly and popular – science papers in Poland and abroad, in-cluding several books, e.g. Gdańsk-ie zabytki architektury końca XViii wieku, Gdańsk University Pub-lishing House, Gdańsk 1995 (2nd. edition 1997); Neue Stadt in altem Gewand. Der Wiederaufbau von Danzig 1945 –1960, Böhl Verlag, Köln – Weimar – wien 2012; Walka obrazów. Przedstawienia wobec idei w Wolnym Mieście Gdańsku, Słowo / Obraz / Terytoria, Gdańsk 2013 (in progress). He also came up with the idea for and was the co – creator of the exhibition and catalogue: Niechciane dziedzictwo. Różne oblicza architektury nowocz-esnej w Gdańsku i Sopocie, Laznia Contemporary Art Centre, Gdańsk 2005.

lawrence abu hamdan

is a London based artist. In 2012, he had two solo shows featuring new commissioned work The Freedom Of Speech Itself at The Showroom, London and The Whole Truth at cAsco, Utrecht. His ongoing project Aural Contract has been recent-ly exhibited at Arnolfini, Bris-tol (2013) and the Taipei Biennial (2012). Other works include Model Court presented at the Chisenhale Gallery, London (2011) and March-es for Artangel, London (2008). His hybridized practice means that he has written for Cabinet Magazine and the 10th Sharjah Biennial and is part of the group running the arts space Batroun Projects in North Lebanon. Abu Hamdan is a Ph.D. candidate and tutor at the depart-ment of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College.


iGor kŁaCzyński

born in 1978 in Tarnobrzeg (Po-land), he began his career as a mu-sician and composer in 1997. He partakes in various progressive and experimental music projects. In 2003 he composed music for a the-atre play entitled Dzieci energii directed by Jakub Palacz. He began his cinematic work in 2005, writing music for an experimental short movie Czuwex directed by Maciej and Michal Madracki, followed by Pawel Orwat’s Wyrok and Slawomir Shuty’s Panoptykon . He composed the soundtrack for an animated film ‘Kto by pomyslal’ by Ewa Boryse-wicz, which won the best animation award at the 29th festival in Kosza-lin and was presented at numerous international festivals. He is also in charge of the soundtrack of The Work of Machines , a documenta-ry movie, using sounds collected in situ. The film won the Grand Prix in the international competition at the Marseille Festival of Documen-tary Film (fiD). In 2009, he started a long – term collaboration with Wilhelm Sasnal. He created the sound track for Swineherd , Sasnal’s first feature movie, and his subse-quent productions: ‘Opad’ (2010)

and Kacper (2010). Their latest collaboration, It looks pretty from a distance’, won best Polish film in 2011 at the New Horizons festival in Wrocław (Poland) and was includ-ed in the official competition of the International Film Festival Rotter-dam 2012.

solvita krese

is an art curator and critic based in Riga. Since 2000 she has been the director of the Latvian Cen-tre for Contemporary Arts (lccA). Since 2009 she has initiated and curated the annual Contemporary Art Festival “Survival kit” . She is curator of a number of large scale international exhibitions – Mobile museum (2007); Urbanologic (2007); Archeology of reality (2006); Trasse-passers. Contemporary art from 80ties at the National Art museum in Riga (2005); The body in Baltic photography, Berlin (2005); Latvian participation at the 26th Bienal de São Paulo biennale (2004); co-cu-rator of the exhibition Faster than history, Kiasma, Helsinki (2004); re:public, Riga (2003). She is among the initiators and co – organizers of two large scale transnational art projects and research platforms: republicart (2003 – 2005) – that ex-plores and promotes intervention-ist and activist practices of public art and transform (2005 – 2008) – re-search into political and artistic practices of institutional critique.

maros krivy

is an Invitational Professor of Ur-ban Studies in the Faculty of Archi-tecture at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn. He obtained a Ph.D. in Urban Studies from the University of Helsinki and graduated with de-grees in Sociology (Charles Univer-sity, Prague) and Photography (Sile-sian Univesity, Opava). He had solo exhibitions in Krakow (2011) and Tallinn (2013) and has taken part in numerous group exhibitions world-wide. Maros was the winner of the sittcomm.award (2011). His publica-tions include “Don’t plan! The use of the notion of ‘culture’ in trans-forming obsolete industrial space” (International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2012) and “In-dustrial architecture and negativi-ty: the aesthetics of architecture in the works of Gordon Matta – Clark, Robert Smithson and Bernd and Hilla Becher” (The Journal of Archi-tecture, 2010).


ewa kruszewska

an architect, a graduate of the Fac-ulty of Architecture and Urban Planning of the Warsaw University of Technology, distinguished in 2004 (together with Jarosław Kozak-iewicz) in the competition for the design of the Museum of Contem-porary Art in Toruń and in 2010 (in co-operation with an architect Ka-zimierz Górski) in the competition for the design of The Ulm Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in the Sub-Carpathian Region at a place of Markowa. She participated (with J. Kozakiewicz) in the Koncert Ży-czeń (Request Show) exhibition in Zamek Ujazdowski Centre for Con-temporary Art in Warsaw (2005). Since 2003, she has run her own stu-dio of architectural design.

suzanne lacy

is the Chair of the Graduate Public Practice Program at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Her work includes installations, video, and large – scale performances that frequently focus on social themes. Recent work: The Tattooed Skele-ton, at the Museo Nacional Centro Reina Sofia, Anyang Women’s Agen-da, in Korea, The Skin of Memory Revisited at the Medellin Biennale and Three Weeks in January for Sil-ver Action for the Tate Modern. Also known for her writing, Lacy edited the influential Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, published in 1995 by Bay Press and has recently released Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974 – 2007 by Duke University Press. Suzanne Lacy: Spaces Between is a monograph by Sharon Irish, pub-lished by the University of Minne-sota Press.

gilles lepore

born in Porrentruy (Switzerland). He is a graphic designer / film au-thor / director. Having graduated from Ecole d’Arts Appliqués de Bi-enne (Switzerland), he received, in 2002, the Federal Design Scholar-ship and an ‘atelier’ in Krakow (Po-land). In 2003, he shot his first short film, the cAGe (an animated film produced in Jerzy Kucia’s atelier in Krakow), presented at more than 30 festivals throughout the world, it received various awards and was shown in contemporary art spac-es (cccb, Barcelona (Spain) / Musée des Beaux – Arts, Moutier (Switzer-land) etc.). Between 2004 – 2005 he did art scholarship on the subject of Swiss French – speaking cantons, has an atelier in Brussels (Belgium), he produced a book of illustrations, which in 2008 received the Alphonse Mucha Award at the biennale of graphic design in Brno, Czech Re-public. Lepore regularly works on art projects and collaborates with Stéphane Montavon and Gilles Aubry on the projects Belju (2009, received the Mediaprojects Schol-arship of the Federal Office of Cul-ture) and Cairo Talking Heads (Les Ecoutis le caire, 2010). In prepara-

tion with Stéphane Montavon and Antoine Chessex he produced: ‘Bol-idage’ (2013), a performance project for tuned cars and a pipe organ with the festival Belluard Bollwerk In-ternational in Fribourg (Switzer-land); ‘L’Appeau’ , an audiovisual opera project is scheduled to see the light of day in 2014. In 2008, Gilles Lepore joins Maciej and Michal Madracki (Poland) under the mon-iker mml, to create experimental films. The most recent film of which is: The Work of Machines (Praca Maszyn, 2010), which won the Grand Prix of the Marseille Festival of Documentary Film (fiD) as part of the international competition.

He works in Boécourt (Switzer-land) and Krakow (Poland).


zbigniew libera

is one of the most interesting and important Polish artists. His works – photography, videos, installations, objects and drawings – piercingly and subversively (in an intellectu-al way) play with the stereotypes of contemporary culture. His shocking video pieces from the ‘80 s (among others Intimate Rites and Mystical Perseverance) preceded body art by 10 years. In the mid-‘90s, Libera began to create Correcting Devices – objects which are modifications of products which already exist – ob-jects of mass consumption (among others Universal Penis Expander and Body Master. A Play Kit For Children). He also designs toys that he has transformed – works that reveal the mechanisms of upbring-ing, education and cultural condi-

tioning, the most famous of which is Lego Concentration Camp. From that moment on, he was one of the pillars of critical art, (also in the institutional sense). Despite the de-velopment of his career he is still closely connected with independent circles. In recent years he has also been preoccupied with photography, especially the specificity of press photography and the ways in which the media shape our visual memory and manipulate the image of history (works from the series Positives and Masters, 2003).

MaCieJ MądraCki

born in 1984 in Krakow (Poland), he graduated from the Institute of Audiovisual Arts, of Jagiellonian University, and currently studies in the Krzysztof Kieslowski film school in Katowice (Poland). He is the au-thor of numerous short documen-taries and fictional movies. In 2006 and 2007 he shot a report from the Krakow Film Festival, which was presented at the 47th edition of the aforementioned festival. Maciej Ma-dracki regularly works as an assis-tant director on various productions and since 2010 has been a part of the mml collective together with his brother, Michal Madracki, and Gilles Lepore. Their first collaboration was ‘The Work of Machines’ , a docu-mentary film which premiered at the Marseille Festival of Documen-

tary Film (fiD, 2010) and received the Grand Prix in the international competition. His thesis film, ‘Wild Planets’ , was included in the com-petition of the most recent New Ho-rizons festival in Wroclaw (Poland), and had its international premiere in Paris (France) at the International Festival Signes de Nuit in 2012. This year he received a scholarship from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. He is currently working on a new film project with the mml collective, to be filmed in 2013 in Morocco.


MiChaŁ MądraCki

born in 1979 in Krakow (Poland). He is a writer, scriptwriter and au-thor of various literary forms, as well as a graduate of Jagiellonian University. In 2003, he presented a multidisciplinary project entitled ‘Died, live and died’ , in collabora-tion with Anne Pery, a photographer from France, in which he stages the performance ‘Borsuk Journey’ (Berlin, Paris, Marseille) which was later featured in the festival “Month of photography_2003” in Krakow. Between 2003 and 2005 he worked on the project ‘Kurhan poetyczny’ , mixing sculpture with literature. In 2005 he directed his first short film, ‘The Pilgrim’ , shown at the 10th ‘Modern Polish Cinema’ festi-val in Wroclaw and at the Europe-an travelling festival ‘Train Europe 2006’ (Berlin, Maribor, Pecs, Kosice,

Krakow). In 2006 Michal Madracki published a novel, ‘Juggler’ , and wrote a theatre play ‘Requiem for a broken pipe’ (2008). The texts were included in various collective pub-lications. He also writes numerous screenplays for short films pro-duced by the Krzysztof Kieslowski film school in Katowice (Poland). In 2010 he collaborated with the mml collective to create ‘The Work of Ma-chines’ , a documentary film which received the Grand Prix in the in-ternational competition at the Mar-seille Festival of Documentary Film (fiD, 2010). He is currently working on a new film project with the mml collective, to be filmed in 2013 in Morocco.

katrĪna neiburga

born in 1978, is one of the most well – known figures in video art in Latvia. Her works consistently reflect both what it means to be human as a general condition as well as what it means to be human at a certain point in time. Pulled through a humanistic filter, Ka-trīna Neiburga’s art expresses to the viewer that which is close and comprehensible: domesticity, rev-elry, loneliness, femininity, sorrow and happiness. She also uses her montage skills as a Vj, working on performances with the Latvian elec-tronic – music group, Latvijas Gāze. Parallel to her exhibition work, she continues to work in the field of stage design. In 2009, Katrīna Nei-burga received the Purvītis Award – a notable honor in Latvian visual art; indeed, she has gone down in history as the very first laureate of

the newly – established award. Nei-burga received the award for two video works – Topology 29 (2007) and Solitude (2007). The latter was exhibited at Moscow’s 2nd Con-temporary Art Biennial and is now part of the collection at Finland’s Contemporary Art Museum, kiAs-mA. Neiburga’s works have been well – received in Scandinavia, re-sulting in exhibition opportunities and even a nomination in 2008 for the largest Northern – European art award – Ars feNNicA. Katrīna Nei-burga studied in the B.A. and M.A. programs at the Latvian Academy of Art’s Department of Visual Com-munications (until 2002), and also spent a year at Stockholm’s Royal Academy of Art (1999 – 2000).


radosŁaw orzeŁ

is a journalist, editor of cultural websites. Since 2010, he is pro-fessionally linked to the Wyspa Art Institute. Co-editor of a radio broadcast Numery pierwsze. A mem-ber of the Wars poetic group and the musical – visual concept Pro-jekt 2 sztuki. He was the laureate of a national competition held by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily (Moje 20 lat wolności), organised to mark the an-niversary of the first free election in post-war Poland which took place on 4 June 1989.

ewa partum

was born at Grodzisk Mazowiecki in 1945, she belongs to the elite group of the most important figures of Pol-ish conceptual art. She debuted with her first conceptual works as early as 1965. Her work is pioneering in the field of Polish feminist art, especially as an analysis of the female subject in a public space. Since 1983, Partum has lived and worked in Berlin. She has participated in many important exhibitions of contemporary art, such as Iconoclash (Zkm Karlsruhe), Intense Proximity, Paris Triennial (Palais de Tokyo, Parisż), Wack! Art of Feminist Revolution (mocA w Los Angeles and momA Ps1 in New York), Manifesta 7 a Rovereto, and Sydney Biennial and many others. Partum’s works are in the collections of many important contemporary art institu-tions, such as Tate Modern, Kontakt.Art Collection Erste Group / Erste Foundation, Centre de Georges Pom-pidou, Generali Foundation, and – in Poland: inter alia, in the collections of the Museum of Art in Łódź, the National Museum in Warsaw, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Wyspa Progress Foundation in Gdańsk and the Contemporary Mu-seum in Wrocław.

cora piantoni

was born in 1975 in Munich (Germa-ny). Artist, photographer and film-maker, who works with oral history and re – enactment. Through exten-sive research, she has focused on the end of the Cold War and the political changes in Eastern Europe. She is interested in political situations and their effect on people’s everyday life, on survival strategies and resistance movements. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich and the University of Art and Design, Zurich where she lives and works. She has exhibited her work in solo and group shows internationally, in Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany, Holland and Switzerland. In 2004 she was awarded the Ba-varian State Sponsorship Award for Photography and in 2010 the hWP – Grant by the Bavarian Ministry for Research and Art and was as artist – in – residence at Klenova / cZ, Dres-den and at WysPA, Gdansk.

aleksandra polisiewicz (aleka polis)

a graduate of the Art Institute of Silesian University in Cieszyn, a post-graduate student of Art Uni-versity in Poznań. She makes videos, documentary films, animation, deal-ing with digital art, performance and painting. She is the author of the virtual reconstruction of Warsaw, in accordance to unrealised Nazi plans, called Wartopia. Her (post)critical works open the field for reflection on how an identity is constructed in a space controlled by widely un-derstood power. Aleka Polis’s works evade any propaganda-oriented in-terpretations; they are her quest for critical strategies with a full aware-ness of a possible failure.


kaTarzyna przezwańska

born in 1984 in Warsaw. In her work she makes reference to modernism in a way that has never been seen in Polish art up until now. In contrast to the Polish artists who debuted in around the year 2000, Przezwańska no longer sees modernism as aes-thetic fetishism, the picturesque ru-ins of a fallen utopia, or a sentimen-tal journey to the concrete – gray lands of her childhood years. Just the contrary: Przezwańska’s work refers to modernism in its heroic pe-riod, still filled with optimism, hope and… sunny colors. In this regard, it extends to include architecture directed towards the individual, adapted to their personal needs, and lays claim to totality. Przezwańs-ka’s work allows us to view from a distance the hold in which Polish public space finds itself. Her most lively characters are the shells of socialist – modernism, which do not allow themselves to be forgotten:

demolished and decaying, burdened with the memories of Communism, but most of all, consistently ignored by historical conservators, they function as a myth, one which can-not be filled with content. On the other hand, Poland’s architectural landscape also includes the univer-sal architectural elements of glass and steel; the style – less style of the global village. Against the backdrop of the outlined architectural map and now the proposals of Katarzy-na Przezwańska, there is potential which cannot be ignored.

MaJa raTyńska

is a designer interested in artistic recycling and eco – education who holds a M.A. from the Art Academy in Gdańsk, and was a former resi-dent of Artists’ Colony at Gdańsk Shipyard. As Design Studio mrkk – together with architect Konrad Zientara – they claimed: We are interested in broadly understood space and human life environment, and so we see architecture, design and art as elements of the same do-main. We want our space to be beau-tiful and comfortable, also simple, and to be a part of the ecosystem.


oliver ressler

lives and works in Vienna and pro-duces exhibitions, projects in pub-lic space, and films on issues such as economics, democracy, global warming, as well as forms of re-sistance and social alternatives. His projects have been featured in solo exhibitions at the Berkeley Art Museum, usA; Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade; Kunstraum at the Univer-sity of Lüneburg; Centro Cultural Conde Duque, Madrid; Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, Egypt; Bunkier Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery, Krakow and The Cube Project Space, Taipei. Ressler has participated in more than 200 group exhibitions, including the mAssmo-cA, usA; the Itaú Cultural Institute, Sao Paulo; the Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdańsk; the National Muse-um of Contemporary Art, Athens; the Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven and at biennials in Prague, Seville,

Moscow, Taipei, Lyon and Gyum-ri. A retrospective of his 15 films is taking place at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève through-out 2013. A travelling show on the financial crisis, Its the Politi-cal Economy, Stupid, co – curated with Gregory Sholette, is currently on display at Pori Art Museum in Finland.

www.ressler.at

martha rosler

is an artist working in multiple me-dia, including photography, video, performance and installation. Her work is often centred on the public sphere and landscapes of everyday life – actual and virtual – especially as they affect women. Projects have focused on housing and architec-ture, on the one hand, and sites of passage and systems of transpor-tation, on the other. Other works, from bus tours to sculptural recre-ations of architectural details, are excavations of urban history. She has for many years produced works on war and the “national security climate,” connecting everyday expe-riences at home with the conduct of war abroad. In video, photo-mon-tage, public posters, and collabora-tive actions she has challenged the precepts of the national security state. Rosler has had numerous solo exhibitions. An archive exhibition of her ground-breaking 1989 New York exhibition cycle If You Lived Here… on housing, homelessness, and the urban environment, was recently shown in New York, Utre-cht, and Barcelona. The Martha Rosler Library, consisting of over 7500 books from Rosler’s collec-

tion, toured nationally and interna-tionally (2005 – 2009). Rosler was a founding member of United Nations Plaza School, Anton Vidokle’s pro-ject in Berlin, Mexico City, and New York. In November 2012 she con-ducted the Meta-Monumental Ga-rage Sale at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.


www.ressler.at

maciek salamon

was born in 1984 in Gdańsk (Po-land). A Man of Many Talents: a visual artist, freelance graphic designer, illustrator, he is also the founder, vocalist and songwriter of Gówno (the first Polish rodeo/ punk rock band). He also creates animat-ed films and music videos and has won a few prizes for his work in-cluding: Northernawaves (Iceland), Stranger Award (Amsterdam), Con Can (Tokio). He is also a member of the Krecha art group (making an art zine “Krecha”). He also runs his own gallery: Galeria Gablotka in the Gdańsk shipyard. He also occa-sionally paints and creates installa-tions and sculptures.

www.macieksalamon.com

lisa schmidt – colinet, alexander schmoeger, & florian zeyfang

are architects and live in Vienna; Florian Zeyfang is an artist from Berlin. They have collaborated on exhibitions and projects since 2001. Within the artist / architect / cu-rator collective rAiN they curat-ed several exhibitions, including 4D – 4 Dimensions, 4 Decades (Ha-vana Biennial 2003); Supermover (Fotofest – Houston, 2002); hAll-WAy (mAk – Vienna 2001); This Is My House (mAk: Schindler House Center for Art and Architecture – Vi-enna / Mackay Appts – Los Angeles, 2001). Since 2008, Schmidt – Col-inet, Schmoeger, and Zeyfang have conceived sculptural and archi-tectonical installations for group and solo exhibitions, working with wood, concrete, slide projection, video, and other materials. Together with Eugenio Valdes Figueroa, they published Pabellon Cuba, an exten-sive reader on art, architecture and film in Cuba (Berlin: b_books, 2008).

Jacek staniszewski

was born in 1957, he graduat-ed from the Faculty of Applied Graphic Art at the Gdańsk Acad-emy, where he studied in the years 1977 – 84. Currently, he has the de-gree of Associate Professor, PhD and runs his own atelier at the Facul-ty of Applied Graphic Art at the same Academy in Gdańsk. He has participated in numerous exhibi-tions in Poland and abroad. In the years 1987 – 94, he presented his works in the series of solo exhib-its: Dread Object (1987 – S Gal-lery, Sopot and Promocyjna Gallery, Warsaw; 1989 – Wostock Gallery, West Berlin, and mck in Leningrad; 1994 – PGs, Sopot and Delikate-sy Avantgarde in Gdańsk). He also participated in group exhibitions: 1985 – Young Artists from Gdańsk at the Institute for Polish Culture, Paris; 1988 – Radical Realism/ Con-crete Abstration National Museum, Warsaw; 1991– Magii and Mys-

tics Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, 1994 – Skarbek / Stanisze-wski / Visconti Tacheles Gallery, Berlin; 1998 – The View from Poland African Window Museum, Pretoria (Republic of South Africa). Since 1986, he has made over 500 posters for exhibitions, theatre performanc-es and concerts. He has designed re-cord and cD covers for music bands and soloists, such as: Bielizna, Apte-ka, Blenders, Ścianka, Mordy, Kury, Łoskot, Leszek Możdżer, Olo Wal-icki Kaszebe. In 1998, his 3 projects of the series: Wild Life Is Us – Dzik-ie Życie to My were presented on 100 hoardings across Warsaw. His works are in the collections of, inter alia: National Museum in Gdańsk (the contemporary art branch), The State Gallery of Art in Sopot.


www.macieksalamon.com

stanza

is an internationally recognised art-ist, who has been exhibiting world-wide since 1984. Recurring themes throughout his career include: the urban landscape, surveillance cul-ture, privacy and alienation in the city. Stanza is interested in the patterns we leave behind as well as real time networked events that can be re – imagined and sourced for information. His mediums include; generative artworks, paintings, in-stallations and public artworks. His works of art have won prestigious painting prizes and twenty interna-tional prizes and art awards includ-ing: Vidalife 6.0 (First Prize), seNef (Grand Prix), Videobrasil (First Prize). Stanza’s art has also been rewarded with a prestigious Nesta Dreamtime Award, an Arts Humani-

ties Creative Fellowship and a Clark bursary award. His artworks have been exhibited globally with over fifty exhibitions including: Venice Biennale: Victoria Albert Museum, Tate Britain, Mundo Urbano Ma-drid, New Forest Pavilion Artsway, State Museum, Novorsibirsk, Bien-nale of Sydney, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo Mexico, Plymouth Arts Centre, icA London, Sao Pau-lo Biennale. Educated in fine art at Goldsmiths College in the early Eighties he later went on to study at Greenwich University and Central Saint Martin’s Art College London. Stanza returned to Goldsmiths Col-lege as an Ahrc arts research fellow.

www.stanza.co.uk

JakuB szCzęsny

is an architect with a lot of experi-ence in advertising and press illus-tration. Co – founder of Centrala, a designer cooperative from War-saw. While maintaining a regular commission – based practice he is involved in many public space projects that address the hidden conflicts in various locations in Eu-rope, the Middle East and Austral-ia. He was a fellow at the Akade-mie Schloss Solitude and currently teaches in the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts where he is part of the Design department and in the War-saw Institute of Technology, in the Architecture department.


www.stanza.co.uk

aneTa szyŁak

is a curator and writer, co – found-er and currently the director of the Wyspa Institute of Art and since 2010 the artistic director of Alter-nativa. After co – founding and run-ning the Laznia (Bathhouse) Centre for Contemporary Art (1998 – 2001) she pursued a career as an inde-pendent curator and researcher. Since 2004 she has been responsible for running Wyspa – the intellec-tual environment for contempo-rary visual culture – in the Gdansk Shipyard. In 2005, she received the Jerzy Stajuda Award “for independ-ent and uncompromising curato-rial practice” . Szylak has a long interest in located practice and her exhibitions are characterized by a strong response to cultural, political, social, architectural and institutional particularities and in-clude: Materiality for Alternativa (with Arne Hendriks, Ines Moreira and Leire Vergara 2012), Buildings and Remnants (Fabrika Asa, Porto, 2012 with Ines Moreira); Estrange-ment for Alternativa (with Hiwa K, 2011); Labor and Leisure for Alter-nativa (2011); Estrangement (with Hiwa K) at the Showroom, London (2010); Over and Over Again at the

Centennial Hall, Wroclaw (2009); Chosen in the Digital Art Lab in Holon (with Galit Eilat); Translate: The Impossible Collection at Wyspa (2008); Ewa Partum: The Legality of Space at Wyspa, You won’t feel a thing: On Panic, Obsession, Ritu-ality and Anaesthesia in Kunsthaus Dresden’ and Artur Zmijewski: Se-lected Works at Wyspa (all in 2006); Dockwatchers (2005, Wyspa); Pal-impsest Museum (2004, Lodz Bien-nale); Health & Safety (2004, Wys-pa); Architectures of Gender (2003, SculptureCenter, New York) and others. She has taught and lectured at many art institutions and univer-sities including the Dutch Art In-stitute in Arnhem, New School University, Queens College and New York University, Florida Atlantic University, Goldsmith College in London, Copenhagen University, and worked as a guest professor at the Akademie für Bildende Künste in Mainz, Germany. Currently she is finalizing her Ph.D. thesis entitled Curating Context. The Palimpsest at Goldsmiths College in London and Copenhagen Doctoral School, Co-penhagen University.

ginta tinte vasermane

born in Latvia, an Amsterdam – based artist. She received her M.A. from the Netherlands Film Acade-my(2012) and B.F.A. from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy(2010). Solo ex-hibitions include Nomad Window, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany (2012); and Working Frames, Ser-vice Garage, Amsterdam, Nether-lands (2012). She has been nominat-ed for Rene Coelho prize (2010) by the Dutch Media Art Institute and participated in a residency at Wall house, Groningen. She also works in the field of motion picture, sculp-ture, architecture, performance, and social commentary.

www.gintatinte.info


www.gintatinte.info

Julita wóJcik

born in 1971 in Gdańsk, she lives and works there. She graduated from the Department of Sculpture of the Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts in 1997. This year, she received the Paszport Polityki and the sZtorm roku 2012 awards. She received grants from the Minister of cul-ture in 1995 / 6; 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007. She was a grantee of the Foundation of Culture in 2001. She has had residencies, among others, at Art in General, New York, usA in 2006 and Visegrad Found 2010. Her works are in the following public collections: the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, the Mu-seum of Art in Łódź, the Nation-al Museum in Warsaw, the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, the Zachęta of Contemporary Art in Szczecin, HorseCross in Perth, Scotland, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Is-rael. Wójcik is known as a chronicler of provincial household aesthetics. Referring to everyday life, she blurs the border between reality and art in her work. The artist’s works are colourful and her effects are achieved by minimal means, such as Potato Peeling (2001) in a gallery or the reading of Strzemiński’s The-

ory of Vision aloud to cattle in the field (A Mystical Landscape, 2007). Sculptures featuring prefabricated buildings are the product of an al-legedly female activity: crocheting. Crocheting, sweeping, gardening, in-stalling mini – ponds in public plac-es, and building feeding trays or fly-ing kites are not associated with art directly but with the experiences of the daily life of a bygone epoch, now passing into oblivion. These simple activities gain in rank only when in-scribed in an artistic context, which ennobles them, on the one hand, and deprives art of its elite value, on the other. By blurring the border be-tween the artistic and the mundane, Wójcik offers us a humorous image of the human condition.



Artistic DirectorAneta Szyłak

curAtoriAl teAmAneta Szyłak, Solvita Krese, Maks Bochenek, Jacek Friedrich, Hubert Bilewicz

ProDuctioNMaks Bochenek

Public relAtioNsRadosław Orzeł, Malwina Toczek

PublicAtioNsKrzysztof Gutfrański, Aleksandra Grzonkowska, Adam Mandziejewski

GrAPhic DesiGNTomasz Bersz

orGANiZAtioN office Zuzanna Malicka, Małgorzata Zamorska-Misztal

ArchiVeMirosław Górczyński

VoluNteers AND trAiNees Klaudia Jarecka, Kasia Lincer, Dagny Liszek, Katarzyna Machulska, Zuzanna Piwnik

techNicAl suPPort ERROR

eXhibitioN stAffDorota Kucharczyk, Przemysław Kędzierski, Adam Mandziejewski, Karolina Pochwatka, Joanna Kawicka

isbN 978-83-935174-3-5

Gdańsk 2013

Wyspa Progress Foundation – Wyspa Institute of Art

ul. Doki 1 / 145 b, 80 – 958 Gdańskwww.wyspa.art.pl

Work’s cAPtioNs(unless otherwise noted)

Aneta Szyłak, Mirosław Górczyński, Adam Mandziejewski, artyści i kuratorzy

eDitor-iN-chief of AlterNAtiVA eDitioNs

Krzysztof Gutfrański

eDitorsAleksandra Grzonkowska, Adam Mandziejewski, Aneta Szyłak

eNGlish VersioN ProofreADiNGJudson Hamilton

trANslAtioNsMarzena B. Guzowska

GrAPhic DesiGN AND DtPTomasz Bersz

alternativa guidebook

alternativa


Organizer

Honorary Patronage

Partners

v

Partners of Mirosław Bałka Transplantation projektu

Partner of the Educational Program

Partner of the Shipyard Dance

Partner of the Views of Power

Media Patron





Documents

Alternativa 2013 Guide