“The aim of „Gesticulation” is to show Polish viewers the artistic-politic situation of contemporary independent art in Russia. We want to learn Russian language, the language that the artists, who critically polemise with the reality, use, speak and think in”
Curators: Katya Shadkovska, Stach Szabłowski
My work took a form of an open Russian language DIY workshop where everyone could learn the Russian language by building up a letter, word or a sentence in Russian with their own hands. Those words and sentences composed a space installation that blocked the passage.
A viewer could enter and interfere with it by moving and creating words, letters, meanings. The available building material was waste and leftovers of young, but yet still, polish capitalistic system.
The process of hand-making letters and sentences in foreign alphabet in foreign language allows to penetrate and get to know both the essence and semantic meaning of the words. It lets to literally and figuratively explore the words, meanings and contexts.
Participant build letter or word placed it in the space and would leave. “His” or “hers” words or sentences were frequently modified by the next participant in order to create their own word, their own meaning.
This interaction could raise a question about affiliation of the phrases and about the ownership of statements, expressions, and intellectual concepts – particularly timely in contemporary Russia.
MATERIALS: various waste collected and brought by participants (plastic bottles, foil, wooden pieces and broken wooden pallets), 2013
Part of the exhibition: “Gesticulation. Russian language for engaged, polemists and ideologically unsettled”. Museum of Contemporary Art in Wroclaw, Poland.
“The aim of „Gesticulation” is to show Polish viewers the artistic-politic situation of contemporary independent art in Russia. We want to learn Russian language, the language that the artists, who critically polemise with the reality, use, speak and think in”
Curators: Katya Shadkovska, Stach Szabłowski
My work took a form of an open Russian language DIY workshop where everyone could learn the Russian language by building up a letter, word or a sentence in Russian with their own hands. Those words and sentences composed a space installation that blocked the passage.
A viewer could enter and interfere with it by moving and creating words, letters, meanings. The available building material was waste and leftovers of young, but yet still, polish capitalistic system.
The process of hand-making letters and sentences in foreign alphabet in foreign language allows to penetrate and get to know both the essence and semantic meaning of the words. It lets to literally and figuratively explore the words, meanings and contexts.
Participant build letter or word placed it in the space and would leave. “His” or “hers” words or sentences were frequently modified by the next participant in order to create their own word, their own meaning.
This interaction could raise a question about affiliation of the phrases and about the ownership of statements, expressions, and intellectual concepts – particularly timely in contemporary Russia.
MATERIALS: various waste collected and brought by participants (plastic bottles, foil, wooden pieces and broken wooden pallets), 2013
Part of the exhibition: “Gesticulation. Russian language for engaged, polemists and ideologically unsettled”. Museum of Contemporary Art in Wroclaw, Poland.