DESCRIPTION OF THE ARTIST RESIDENCY PROGRAM
The artist residency program has been implemented at the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka since 2013 as one of the activities of the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art. It is addressed to Polish and foreign* artists, representing various fields of art: ceramics, sculpture, drawing, photography, video art, web projects, performance, theater. We prefer realizations concerning art in public space and socially engaged art, commenting on current political and cultural phenomena or referring to the history of Ustka. We are focused on cooperation with the local community in the form of creative workshops and meetings. The final result of the residency program is an exhibition presenting the implemented project and an author’s meeting with the audience.
* with no age or country of origin restrictions, the only requirement is to speak and write English at a communicative level.
Duration
2 months / or in justified cases 3 months (continuous recruitment)
Deadline for submitting applications
Continuous recruitment
Organizer’s obligations
We provides accommodation in the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka and the possibility of using the Photography and Film Studio, the Sculpture and Ceramics Studio and the lecture hall (including for the presentation of creative work). We offer accommodation in single and double rooms with access to the kitchen, dining room and laundry room. BGSW staff provide assistance in mounting the exhibition, organizing workshops and meetings with the public.
Resident’s obligations
Cost of work materials, food, insurance.
The application must contain
1. Contact details;
2. Artistic biography;
3. The artist’s works in the form of photographic documentation or a link to the website where they are located;
4. Proposal of a project to be implemented during the stay;
5. References (min 1) – for artists for whom this will be their first residency, these may be references issued by a university or other cultural institution.
Please send your applications to: [email protected]
Contact details
Centre for Creative Activities
Gen. Zaruskiego 1a
76-270 Ustka
Poland
Phone: +48 515 089 698
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:
www.bgsw.pl
www.facebook.com/baltic.gallery.art
LITTLE GALLERY
Aleksandra Zawistowska
ceramics
January – February 2024
photo. Damian Gugała
Project title / Around zero
“The project begins with observations and experiments on the coast during the winter months of January and February. I will study the circulation of water and winds in the atmosphere, as well as natural and physical phenomena. The aim of the project is to explore changes in the landscape, especially the process of transition of substances between gaseous, liquid and solid states when the air temperature reaches the critical point of zero degree Celsius. The project will be set in a specific place and time and will evolve with the residency. While analysing the influence of local culture and architecture and observing the local ecosystem devoid of tourists, I will also be looking for the relationship between natural materials such as water and sea salt, clay and sand, stones and wood, and the ceramic material and its structural properties. Whilst usually working with glass, this time I will focus on its primary ingredient – glaze. The residency will result in a spatial installation that comments on and commemorates the natural environment. I will use sculpture, film and sound to represent the experience of a winter stay at the Baltic Sea. It will be an attempt to arrest and immortalise the context of the residency from the perspective of the person who came there.” /Aleksandra Zawistowska/
Aleksandra Zawistowska is an artist, designer and architect. She creates sculptural objects, spatial installations, design projects, interior design, digital design and mosaics. She is passionate about combining theoretical work on paper with physical work in workshops and steelworks. Since 2022, together with her brother, she has co-founded and created the Glass Studio. She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, Universidade Lusiada de Lisboa, Studio for Immediate Spaces at Sandberg Instituut, where she earned degrees in art and architecture. Nominated by the curatorial team of GLUE Amsterdam as one of 30 artists with the title “Stretching the Definition of Design”, and by OBJECT Rotterdam as “New Talent 2023”. Aleksandra has participated in exhibitions in Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Georgia and Ukraine, including at Het Nieuwe Instituut, the National Dutch Opera, Het HEM, the Museum of Warsaw, and her work has been featured in numerous Polish and foreign media. In July, she will be holding an Artist Fellowship at UrbanGlass in New York, in September her glass sculptures will be exhibited as part of the GLUE festival, and in 2024, in addition to her residency at the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art, she will also hold an Artist Residency “Arctic Circle” at the Arctic Circle.
Jolanta Juszkiewicz /
Teatr Kropka Theatre
theater
April, June 2024
photo. Eryk Lenartowicz
Project title / Stolpmünde – Ustka / 1945
The residency project will involve the realization of an original documentary theater about the history of the expelled Germans and the Poles who settled in their place in Ustka as well as in Pomerania in 1945. Inviting the local community to participate, the author’s narrative and moving performance will be created. It is tempting to explore history with the imagination, where the senses capture emotions and try to understand those who lived here before. Through the movement of bodies reminiscent of human shadows and an installation of words and sounds, my intention will be to restore the intermingling moments: the spirit of the fleeing Germans with the spirit of the Poles entering their homes. The evoked emotions of the fate of the civilian population of the opposing fronts will remind us that injustice hurts just the same. The residency project will additionally offer the local Ustka community the opportunity to participate in workshops on poor theater enriching knowledge of alternative creative forms, and a guest performance complementing the theme of displacement in 1945. /Jolanta Juszkiewicz/
Jolanta Juszkiewicz – MA in Art, graduate of the Academy of Theater, acting department, Wroclaw, Performance Studies Sydney University, Australia. Participant of Khalid Tjabj’s master classes at Sri Ram Centre, Delhi, India, Tor Arne and Jerzy Grotowski’s students at Grenland FriTeatre in Porsgrunn, Norway, Alehandro Ronceria ‘Native Indian Dance’ in Toronto, Canada, Eugenio Barba’s ISTA International School of Theater Anthropology, Odine Teatre in Holstebro. In 1997, in Sydney, Australia, she founded the professional author’s Kropka Theatre. In duo with New Zealand director Anatoly Frusin, she has led the premieres of both world classics and documentary performances awarded and invited internationally by, among others, Prof. Richard de Marco to the Edinburgh International Arts Festival. Since 2007, she has been developing Kropka Theatre with a base in Poland. Functioning in the spirit of poor theater, she performs in a continuous stream of international invitations. She has presented in Australia, Albania, Armenia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, France, Finland, Nagorno-Karabakh, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Germany, Ossetia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Scotland, Sweden, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, United Kingdom, United Emirates. She has returned to many countries with a new performance, directing or workshops. She participates in competition and seminar panels, conducts acting workshops and directs companies outside the Kropka Theatre. She has received scholarships from the Ministers of Culture (twice), the Marshal of Pomerania and the Mayor of Warsaw (twice). She has won Australian Cultural Trust, international Grand Prix and acting awards, as well as journalists’ chapter awards for promoting Polish culture around the world. In 2022 she celebrated 25 years of Kropka Theatre. Under the support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, she carried out a program of events, published a monographic publication and a series of analyses and scientific statements showing Jolanta Juszkiewicz’s working method to be of extraordinary value to Polish culture. In 2023, the Polish-Australian Pol-Cul Foundation awarded the creator for “connecting people in the world through theater,” honored in the national competition Polka XXI in the section Culture. As part of the theater’s quarter-century anniversary, she participated with her monodrama Mother by S.I. Witkiewicz at the Sydney Fringe Festival in Australia, where she was awarded an Eldon and Ann Foote Trust grant to realize and premiere a new play in the 2024 edition. The artist notes that the body is a key point of reference for any kind of art. She is interested in exploring organic sensory impulses and the body’s relationship with partner objects in the creative process. The body of the viewer, which, moved by the emotions of the actress, engages the spiritual realm by moving with the story and becoming part of the world of metaphor, is also of great importance.
Subsidized by the Museum of Polish History in Warsaw under the program “Patriotism of Tomorrow” 2024
Hetty Ann Laycock
Ceramics
May – June 2024
Project title / At the rhythm of the wave
This project will involve a study of the coastal landscape, how it manifests itself in form and pattern and the relationship between natural materials and phenomena such as water and light, sea and rock, wind and sand. I will be collecting and archiving forms and behaviours from the Baltic landscape – together with prior familiarity and orientation toward the Venetian lagoon and the Cornish and Yorkshire landscapes – then combining the elements to create polymorphic ceramic forms. Organic elements and natural phenomena will interact with the ceramic medium, giving the sculptures a sense of vitality and blurring the boundaries between art and nature, human and non-human. Each work will represent a complex and fragile network, serving as a metaphor for contemporary ecosystems and inviting observers to form new connections with nature. Through collaboration with the surroundings and with the ceramic material, I hope to inspire new possibilities for ecological thought and action and to challenge the concept of individuality. This residency will result in a new series of contemporary, ceramic sculptures. /Hetty Ann Laycock/
Hetty Ann Laycock – visual artist, she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and Falmouth University in Cornwall where she earned degrees in Fine Art and Decoration. Involved in a series of exhibitions that have seen her move between and across England, Italy, China, and now Poland, Hetty Ann Laycock is currently a member of the cultural association Zolforosso, based in Venice, Italy. Artist practice explores the organic landscape in its formal, relational and material aspects, with the aim of fostering a process of perpetual care and exchange with it. Incorporating experiences from art, science and architecture, the artist conveys a holistic vision of phenomena in her works, inviting us to perceive the complexity, interdependence and fragility of ecosystems. Through environmental exercises of coexistence, proximity and care, Hetty Ann Laycock investigates the potential of ceramics to promote biodiversity and ecological balance, exploring the art and science of biomimicry within a sculptural practice.
Sylwia Gorak
performance, drawing
May – June 2024
photo. Krystian Data
Project title / Witch Rises to Power by Singing
During my artist residency, I intend to research the acoustics of the Witch Tower in order to create a sound sculpture and vocal performance “Witch Rises to Power by Singing” (the title is a quote from an old practical magic textbook). As a professional singer, I have repeatedly experienced the beneficial effects of singing on the mental and physical wellbeing. In difficult and dramatic circumstances, singing becomes a therapeutic process allowing one to build a personal sense of power in life. Intense vocal work has developed in me some echolocation capabilities that allow me to navigate rooms without using the sense of sight. Blindfolded, I have been exploring the acoustics of galleries, old castles and churches for many years working internally with acoustics and the echolocation sense. During a performance, I find the most acoustic spots in a room or something like ‘power spots’. I mark them on the floor with white chalk and, seeing absolutely nothing, return to them several times guided only by the sounds and inner sensations.
Architecture is an auditory phenomenon in itself, enhancing the qualities of the human voice, singing and dialogue. It invisibly ‘organises’ our social life. Acoustics, reverberation effects, echoes, the natural amplification of sound or its disappearance are prominent properties of any architecture being a part of it.
When I think of the thousands of imprisoned and persecuted European women facing accusations of witchcraft, I identify psychologically with them at dramatic moments in their lives. Women in Poland, and especially in the Podkarpacie region where I come from, are still treated unjustly if they do not want to conform to the prevailing patriarchal social systems. For creative, unmarried and childless women, life in this part of Poland is quite difficult, as they are considered a suspicious antisocial element. In my early youth, while attending vocal workshops led by Professor Olga Szwajgier, I learnt to liberate my voice, to build with it inner power and self-esteem as a human being. I think that an imprisoned ‘witch’ could practice effective self-therapy with her voice. The residency will culminate in a vocal “concert” based on the phenomenon of Witch Tower acoustics and echolocation, and a series of charcoal drawings on paper depicting my personal para-magical practices. “Drawing down the Moon” will be a reflection on the phases of the moon reflected in the sea, in the context of a seascape. /Sylwia Gorak/.
Sylwia Gorak is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, with a degree in Prof. Jerzy Kałucki’s painting studio and Prof. Jarosław Kozłowski’s performance studio. Holder of scholarships, including Prohealvetia in Switzerland, CECArtsLink in New York and Landeshauptstadt Kulturamt in Düsseldorf. Winner of the 5th Young Artists’ Biennale “Fish Eye”. Performer, vocalist. Exhibitions and concerts (including at Carnegie Hall New York). Creator of the World’s Largest Sundial (urban-art) in Düsseldorf. She is currently active in acoustic performance (she has a four-octave voice scale) and conceptual performance and is active in the international art circuit. She received a grant from the Susch Museum of the Grażyna Kulczyk Foundation. She co-created the international Common Ground project at the CCA in Toruń, as well as in Reykjavik and Vilnius. A pupil of Prof. Olga Szwajgier, a world-renowned opera singer.
Agata Zbylut
analogue photography
July – August 2024
photo. Agata Zbylut
Project title / Touch where you’re ashamed to
Touch where you’re ashamed to” is a photographic project combining feminist and ecological themes. During a two-month residency at the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art in Słupsk, the artist intends to use the darkroom and other facilities of analogue photography to prepare a project using both the architecture of the institution itself and the seaside landscape. She is inspired by the memory of her Grandmother, who used to go to the seaside to the sanatorium dressed in a long nutria fur coat. This fur was supposed to be a symbol of luxury, although rough nutria were only a substitute for the much more expensive mink or fox. Today, they are for us above all a symbol of cruelty and evidence of how our sensitivity and perception of animals has changed over the past few decades. The result of the work will be presented at an exhibition held at the end of the residency. The artist has also planned a meeting – a lecture on self-portraiture as an issue that has been gaining in popularity since the Middle Ages and is becoming an increasingly common means of expression, also used by the artist herself. /Agata Zbylut/
Agata Zbylut – artist, academic, feminist, vegan, occasional curator and activist. In 1993-1999, she studied at the Institute of Culture and Visual Arts at the University of Zielona Góra (University of Zielona Góra), graduating from the Drawing and Intermedia Studio. In 2008, she defended her PhD in Applied Arts at the Faculty of Multimedia Communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, and in 2012 she was awarded a postdoctoral degree at the State Higher School of Television and Theatre in Łódź. Between 2000 and 2005, she was a curator at the Amfilada Gallery. In 2004, she coordinated the National Programme of Culture “Signs of the Times” in the province of West Pomerania. In 2005, she was awarded the Gloria Artis Bronze Medal for Merit to Culture. In 2004, she founded the Association Zachęta Sztuki Współczesnej in Szczecin, which implemented the ministerial programme “Signs of the Times”. From 2004 to 2023, she was president of the association, which in the meantime built the Zachęta Regional Collection of Contemporary Art – the largest collection of contemporary art in western and northern Poland, and led to the establishment of Trafostacja Sztuki in Szczecin. Originator and curator of the Youth Art Festival “Przeciąg” (2007, 2009, 2011). Since 2010, she has been working at the Academy of Art in Szczecin (since 2013 as an associate professor), where she leads the Studio of Photography and Post-Artistic Activities and served as the head of the Department of Photography from 2018 to 2022. She has had over 150 solo and group exhibitions to her credit in Poland, Germany, Belarus, Ukraine, France, Croati, UK, USA.
Created with the financial assistance of the Province of Pomerania
Grzegorz Kozera
watercolour
August - September 2024
photo. Cezary Wierzbicki
Project title / Astronomy of Colour
As part of the project ‘Astronomy of Colour’, I will explore chromatic phenomena and refer to the rich history of plein air painting in Ustka. During the residency I will make a series of watercolours based on the constant motif of the sea and harbour as seen from the window of my accommodation. I will subject these works of variable format (from A4 to A2) to further installation at the closing exhibition of the residency. Although I will base my work on actual views, I will approach them in a painterly rather than illustrative fashion. The fixed frame will serve as a pretext to rediscover colour theory. The project aims to revive the long tradition of plein-air painting workshops in Ustka, with particular emphasis on the figure of Jan Cybis. This outstanding painter, member of the Paris Committee and long-standing professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw made numerous visits to the city (August 1949, August 1962, July and August 1967). His ‘Painter’s Notes. Diaries 1954-1966’ show that he usually made a series of watercolours at the time. This publication is the source of the eponymous reflection on the changing ‘colour constellations’ for my residency. With this historical context, my artistic residency will also be part of the nationwide celebration of the centenary of the Paris Committee. /Grzegorz Kozera/.
Grzegorz Kozera (born 1983 Warsaw) – Doctor of Arts, painter, creator of collages. 2003-2008, studies at the Faculty of Art History at the UKSW in Warsaw. 2006-2011 study course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Degree with Rector’s Distinction in the Studio of Painting Space of Prof. Leon Tarasewicz and Dr. Paweł Susid. 2017-2020, doctoral studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków in the studio of Prof. Grzegorz Sztwiertnia. He has won numerous scholarships and award, including a scholarship from the ZAIKS Fund for the Promotion of Creativity in 2020 and 2022, a grant from the Office of the Capital City of Warsaw in 2014 in 2016; the first prize in the Młoda Polska competition in 2019 and an honourable mention at the 42nd Bielska Jesień Painting Biennale competition in 2015. Since 2020, he has been working at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. His works can be found in the collections of the National Museum in Gdańsk, Museum of Literature in Warsaw, Płock Art Gallery, Art Gallery in Legnica, Biała Gallery in Lublin, Galeria Bielska BWA, Municipal BWA Gallery in Bydgoszcz.
Artistic residence
for artists
from Słupsk and Ustka
Małgorzata Zelek
screen printing, textile
January – February 2023
Project title: “Memory”
The artist will begin work on a residency project combining the technique of screen printing with artistic textiles, expanding its definition and emphasising the experimental creative process.
Inspiration will come from handicrafts made by people close to the artist and everyday objects stored in the family archive. The preserved objects created at different stages of their lives, with utilitarian or decorative purposes, point to a specific time and evoke personal memories and feelings of nostalgia. The collected materials and their images preserved only in photographs will become a starting point for an exploration of memory and its permanence.
Małgorzata Zelek (born in1989 in Słupsk) – (born in1989 in Słupsk) – visual artist, stage designer; graduate of Stage Design at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań and of artistic fabric at the W. Hasior Secondary School of Fine Arts in Koszalin, where she has run an artistic fabric studio since 2020. She has led costume workshops in the projects: “The Mouth of Słupsk”, “The Birdshed at Lazarus”, “Dancing with the Waves”. She works on co-creating set and costume designs for films and plays.
Wojciech Gilewicz
sculpture, installation
March – April 2023
Project title: “Ustka 2023”
Painting projects, exhibitions and the Instagram account @walewska8studio become a way for me to address themes related to waste and methods of enhancing its value. The negative connotations associated with them impose themselves already at the level of terminology, and the search for and acceptance of that which is discarded may serve as a universal practice that transcends ecological themes. During my residency, I am going to perversely juxtapose “waste” with “luxury”. The economy of luxury (consumption, excess and fashion) driven by society is on the one hand responsible for the huge overproduction (the packaging of the products we buy alone accounts for 10-25% of the rubbish we produce), on the other hand, according to its logic, waste has the potential to become a luxury and collector’s item. The recent revival of ceramics from Mirostowice, furniture design from the 1950s-70s and other items salvaged from containers and dumpsters is a well-known phenomenon. During my residency, I am going to be a regular visitor to the ceramics studio. While learning about this medium in practice, I would like to find a common denominator between the noble and demanding technology of ceramics and the experimentation and fascination of waste. /Wojciech Gilewicz/.
Wojciech Gilewicz is a painter, photographer and video maker. His latest film Walks on Garbage made in New York, is a kind of walk through the city with rubbish in the background, where themes such as trash diving, no-waste culture, circular economy and freeganism are explored in a rather free narrative. In his projects, Gilewicz very often appears on both sides of the camera adhering to the principles of self-reliant economics.
From 2017 to 2021, the artist ran Beach64retreat by the Ocean in Rockaway, a grassroots, independent and free initiative for creative individuals from various disciplines as his response to the increasing precarization in the sectors of arts and culture. The artist is a co-founder of the artist collective Other Society, operating in Warsaw since 2022.
Zuzanna Litawińska
Aleksandra Szczodry
installation, drawing, photography, ceramics
May - June 2023
Project title: “Ointment”
“Ointment” is an undertaking carried out by a pair women testing different ways of understanding reality and seeing which ones will absorb and soothe the body and spirit. The word ‘ointment’ can evoke various associations, from an apothecary meticulously measuring out ingredients in a sterile interior, to an old hag grinding herbs in an ancient mortar. It can refer to the healing ointment we apply to our bodies when something ails us, or to a magical substance, like the one that made Margarita from Bulgakov’s novel fly to the ball. Finally, ‘ointment’ can also refer to the colour of skin or fur, stimulating reflection on belonging to a species, race or social group. “Ointment” explores and combines these associations. It provides a record of the search for one’s place in the world, looking at one’s own difference, discovering one’s own femininity, recognising one’s own conditions and bonds of belonging. It is a place of putting on and taking off masks, of rational analysis and magical combining of elements.
Zuzanna Litawińska – born in 1989. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 2018. Scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture for 2019, as part of the scholarship she recorded tales and stories of women from different parts of Poland, which she then incorporated into a multimedia exhibition. She works in a variety of media. Her work is inspired by nature, anthropology, primal beliefs and symbols. She often uses plants, or parts of plants, in her works.
Aleksandra Szczodry – born in 1983. Multidisciplinary artist, PhD in art (2019). Scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2019). Her painting work explores the spiritual condition of women in the contemporary world. As an advocate of methods of deep transformation, she explores the essence of focusing on the inner development of the individual and learning about oneself through spiritual practices, working with myths and elemental energies. Her works have been presented at A.I.R. Gallery in New York (USA), the Art Armoury in Gdańsk, Saint-Luc Gallery in Liège (Belgium), the Mazovian Centre for Contemporary Art “Elektrownia” in Radom, Salon Akademia Gallery in Warsaw, Płock Art Gallery, the Centre for Artistic Activities (ODA) in Piotrków Trybunalski, Wozownia Art Gallery in Toruń, O’Flaherty Gallery in New York, and more.
Faction /
Monika Czarska
Roksana Kularska-Król
Alicja Kujawska
Anka Leśniak
Aurelia Mandziuk
Beata Marcinkowska
activities in urban space, performance, video
September 2023
Project title: “Free time”
The topic of our projects during the residency will be the issue of “free time”. According to the PWN Encyclopedia, free time is the part of the total time that a person has within their time budget, during which they can freely pursue activities of their own choosing. According to Wikipedia, it is the time that a person has after completing duties such as study, work, and activities related to everyday life. In the definitions of researchers, there is a clear separation of activities related to the professional sphere, with learning taking place in the education system measured in man-hours, and activities outside the professional sphere. In Poland, the term “free time” was introduced in 1925. As Grażyna Durka writes, at the beginning, holidays and recreation were called “free time”. Later, the concept was expanded and it began to cover broader issues, reflecting on the impact of free time on society. In W. Okoń’s pedagogical dictionary, free time is that which “after completing mandatory tasks” is spent on rest, i.e. regeneration of physical and mental strength, entertainment that gives pleasure, social activity of a voluntary and selfless nature, development of interests and talents individuals, and therefore various types of hobbies. “Leisure time” is therefore a construct of modernity, introduced to meet the needs of the working masses. The more work is alienated and separated from other life activities, the easier it is to define the limits of free time. Free market, neoliberal changes, whose banner has become “abnormal working time”, are blurring its boundaries. The quantity and quality of free time is also determined by age, gender, social and financial position. Free time can be looked forward to when we have a stable job and the opportunity to go on vacation. However, for people who cannot find a job and have too much work, it is a source of frustration and apathy. The concept of time in general, however, is quite relative in different geographical circles and cultures. Not all inhabitants of the world treat what the clocks show with equal seriousness.
In these contexts, what is interesting is the activity of artists, which escapes the boundaries between work and free time, which also reflects the uncertain/unclear status of creators in social structures.
Is art a serious profession or a hobby? Is it work or pleasure…? During the residency, we intend to explore the topic of free time in artistic and artistic-social projects. What does this time mean for us – artists? What is it for the community of Ustka and what is it for tourists who come there for holidays.
Monika Czarska – graduate of the Faculty of Graphics and Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. Creativity in the field of painting, graphics and multimedia. He creates painting objects, installations and site-specific works. In November 2018, she defended her PhD degree with distinction at the Wł. Academy of Fine Arts. Strzemiński in Łódź. In 2016, at the 25th Festival of Polish Contemporary Painting in Szczecin, I received the award of the Mayor of Szczecin for the paintings “Yes, No” and “Maybe”. “When working, the concept is very important to me. My works are characterized by a synthesis of thoughts, symmetry, sparse colors, minimalism and geometry. When creating, I analyze the concept I want to talk about. I break them down into their first parts and give them a graphic form. I turn fragmented aspects of a given concept into geometric symbols, creating maps of the topics I discuss. Shaping the form of an image is a path, a set of symbols and text. Paintings are a story, illustrated with a thought process, which determines their form. In my works, lines and geometric forms have hidden meanings, they are synonymous with veiled content. My paintings contain words written by hand or from a stencil, always in English, which, in my opinion, is the Esperanto of today’s times. An analytical approach to the topics I undertake accompanies me not only in painting, but also in my site-specific works, graphic designs and installations. – Monika Czarska
Alicja Kujawska – ethnologist and cultural anthropologist. Author of the Visual Anthropology program for ethnologists (at the Nicolaus Copernicus University and the University of Humanities and Economics in Łódź) and Design Anthropology for students of design (Pedagogical University of Krakow). She cooperated with the University of Silesia in Cieszyn, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Patio Art Center, World Crafts Council, Texi and Textilmagazine, and the Political Criticism Club. In cooperation with Zamek Cieszyn, she initiated international workshops for designers, Wool Design in Carpathians. Initiator of the Polish edition of Art+Feminism for Wikipedia. Editor of scientific and popular science texts. Exhibitions: individual “Anarcho-syndicalists”; group exhibitions: “MatriarchArt”, The Demon in Me”, and together with a group of Frakcja artists: Rebelle, Plexus, Łącze, Akcja*Frakcja*Libacja, Dziennik Frakcji, ABGEFAHREN, Selection, 66 Days, Gray End, Kafka’s Sisters, Women’s Beach, Artystka_artystce, (non-)human community. She is interested in design, 18th-century embroidery and soft sculpture.
Roksana Kularska-Król – doctor of art, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź in 2007, receiving a diploma with honors from the Painting Studio of prof. Ryszard Hunger. Two annexes to the diploma were made in the Photography Studio of prof. Leokadia Bartoszko and the Drawing Studio of prof. Zdzisław Olejniczak. In 2021, she defended her doctorate at the Faculty of Art of the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, under the supervision of prof. Tomasz Sikorski. He deals with painting, photography, video and illustration. He also creates projections for theater performances. In 2007, she was nominated for the best diploma of the year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. She received a distinction in the “Beautiful Tile Wanted” competition, and the project was presented at the “Ceramika do Squared” exhibition as part of the Łódź Design Festival 2010. Together with her husband Sebastian, she creates the robosexi artistic duo. Their areas of activity include: object, installation, video, performance. In 2014 and 2022 she received the Artistic Scholarship of the City of Łódź. She received the Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage twice (2017, 2020). Member of the Frakcja group of artists and the Art and Documentation Association.
Anka Leśniak – intermedia artist, researcher, lecturer at the Intermedia Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, member of the Frakcja group of artists and the TFR archive collective. She took part in over 100 projects, individual and collective exhibitions. Winner of the Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Fund for the Promotion of Creativity (2011), the scholarship of the President of the City of Łódź for Creators and Animators of Culture (2015) and the Cultural Scholarship of the City of Gdańsk (2016). Artist at the KulturKontakt residency in Vienna (2016). In 2019, she was awarded the OeAD scholarship (Scholarship of the Scholarship Foundation of the Republic of Austria). Feminist issues, site-specific art and art in public space are close to her. In his performative works, he addresses topics related to memory, “re-construction”, herstory, ethnic and cultural identity, migration and language. Author of the book Invisible inVisible. Women disconnected from history. Site-specific artworks on abandoned buildings (Łódź: Stowarzyszenie Sztuka i Documentacja, 2017). Author of the following projects: Body Printing (since 2007), Top Models (2008-2009), Fading Traces (2010), Registered (2011), Invisible inVisible (2015-16), patRIOTki (2016-20), Lost Element. Re-construction of the Witch (from 2019).
Aurelia Mandziuk – graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. Professor at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. Artist, curator and art animator. Co-founder of the Polish branch of the World Crafts Council. The creator and long-time director of the PATIO Art Center in Łódź, where she was the organizer and curator of over 150 exhibitions and artistic events. Editor and co-publisher of two artistic and theoretical magazines. Co-founder of the Art and Documentation Association, co-organizer of the Art and Documentation Festival. Co-founder of the first group of female artists in Poland “Frakcja”. Initiator and participant of many international artistic projects. She creates site-specific objects and installations, and the material of her works and activities is primarily fabric. Her recent works concern mutual communication and interpersonal relationships.
Beata Marcinkowska – intermedia artist, art animator, academic, resident of Łódź. In his work, he deals with various aspects of modern man’s life, paying attention to the symbolism of the body today. He carries out his own artistic projects – objects, installations, collages, land art and performance. He takes part in exhibitions, artistic actions, transmedia and site-specific activities in Poland and abroad. It implements artistic and social projects for the residents of Łódź as well as research projects on the active reception of contemporary art by children and adults. Author and co-author of publications, textbooks and art exercises. Member of the Art and Documentation Association and the Polish Committee of the International Association for Education through Art InSEA. Frakcja, associated with an intergenerational group of artists and art theorists. He teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts. On Strzemiński in Łódź. She is interested in personal development, deepening mindfulness and awareness of one’s own body and voice. In her free time, she practices yoga.
Artistic residency
for artist-mothers
With the experience of organising residencies for Ukrainian female refugee artists and their immediate families, we decided to initiate an artist-in-residence programme available to female artists-mothers. This is our pilot project to support artists-mothers and enable them to work on developing their artistic practice in a new environment together with their children. The first participant in the programme is Katarzyna Laskus-Stwora. Applications for projects are welcome; we are planning the next call in 2024.
Katarzyna Laskus-Stwora
Photography
July - August 2023
Project title: “Oxygen”
The project “Oxygen” will focus on photography in urban spaces, and will be a continuation of the production “Adapted Towns” and its first installments “Urban Landscape – Nowa Huta”, “Urban Landscape – Kraków”.
Having lived in many cities in Poland, I collect and illustrate my memories of places that are important, sentimental, but also condemned to oblivion. I will address the image of Ustka and its context as a spa town, the good found, the longing for ecological living conditions, and I will show the contrast between the cities of Ustka and Kraków. The result of the residency will be a series of photographs presenting my subjective view of the cities I have been or am associated with, Ustka and Kraków. I am also planning to carry out activities – an action under the common title “Oxygen” and photographic workshops dedicated to the local community. I will use analogue photography, digital photography and the photomontage method. /Katarzyna Laskus-Stwora/.
Katarzyna Laskus-Stwora (born in 1980) – degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań and the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. She works with autobiographical and conceptual photography. She conducts educational activities in the field of traditional and digital photographic images. She has participated in exhibitions at home and abroad. She is the winner of many photographic competitions. She is the author of the Portfolio blog as an archive realised within the framework of the Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. In 2016, she was accepted as a member of the Association of Polish Artists Photographers. Participant of the meetings of the Author’s Laboratory of Photography in Wrocław.
Artistic residency
for an artist from Ukraine
Olena Matoshniuk
performance,video art,
drawing
July – August 2023
Project title: “Ukrainian landscape”
The first of my activities during my stay at the artist residency will be the performative and drawing project “Ukrainian Landscape”. Its idea is to draw attention to the nightmare of the war that has been going on continuously since 2014. On a large white roll, traces of the subsequent days of the war will be symbolically imprinted, referring to the wall notes of defenseless people staying in the shelters. I would like to symbolically compare the peaceful and tourist landscape of Ustka with what is happening next to the Polish border, in Ukraine. The creation of the drawings will be extended in time, similarly to the war that has been ongoing since 2014. I propose the open urban space of Ustka as a place to present the project. This activity will be complemented by a painting installation titled “Racists, get out of here.” Its main motif will be doormats strewn with flowers. This is my reflection on the slogans spread by Russian propaganda, presenting the Russian occupiers as “liberators” of the oppressed Ukrainian nation, greeted in the streets with flowers. My project will be complemented by workshops referring to the history of Ustka, dedicated to the local community and tourists. I would like the meeting participants to create their own versions of “holiday postcards” that will convey a positive message, energy and hope for the future. They will interpenetrate the beauty of the seaside landscape of Ustka and the surrounding area, its architecture and multicultural history. /Olena Matoshniuk/
Olena Matoshniuk – born in Lutsk. He lives and works in Wrocław. A graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts. Eugeniusz Geppert in Wrocław – studio of prof. Marian Waldemar Kuczma and the Lutsk National Technical University in the field of Design. In the years 2014-2019, she implemented an individual teaching program in Wiera Końska’s painting studio. Author of individual and group exhibitions in Poland and abroad. Participant of numerous artistic open-air events, workshops and animator of broadly understood culture and art. He deals with painting, performance and video art. Scholarship holder of the Gaude Polonia program of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, three-time beneficiary of the Scholarship of the President of Wrocław in the field of artistic creativity and education, winner of the national Student Nobel competition in the Art category, and its two-time finalist. Member of the Association of Polish Artists. Her works are in the collections of the Korsak Museum of Contemporary Art of Ukraine, the Krupa Gallery Foundation and private ones.
Faction /
Monika Czarska
Roksana Kularska-Król
Alicja Kujawska
Anka Leśniak
Aurelia Mandziuk
Beata Marcinkowska
activities in urban space, performance, video
September 2023
Project title: “Free time”
The topic of our projects during the residency will be the issue of “free time”. According to the PWN Encyclopedia, free time is the part of the total time that a person has within their time budget, during which they can freely pursue activities of their own choosing. According to Wikipedia, it is the time that a person has after completing duties such as study, work, and activities related to everyday life. In the definitions of researchers, there is a clear separation of activities related to the professional sphere, with learning taking place in the education system measured in man-hours, and activities outside the professional sphere. In Poland, the term “free time” was introduced in 1925. As Grażyna Durka writes, at the beginning, holidays and recreation were called “free time”. Later, the concept was expanded and it began to cover broader issues, reflecting on the impact of free time on society. In W. Okoń’s pedagogical dictionary, free time is that which “after completing mandatory tasks” is spent on rest, i.e. regeneration of physical and mental strength, entertainment that gives pleasure, social activity of a voluntary and selfless nature, development of interests and talents individuals, and therefore various types of hobbies. “Leisure time” is therefore a construct of modernity, introduced to meet the needs of the working masses. The more work is alienated and separated from other life activities, the easier it is to define the limits of free time. Free market, neoliberal changes, whose banner has become “abnormal working time”, are blurring its boundaries. The quantity and quality of free time is also determined by age, gender, social and financial position. Free time can be looked forward to when we have a stable job and the opportunity to go on vacation. However, for people who cannot find a job and have too much work, it is a source of frustration and apathy. The concept of time in general, however, is quite relative in different geographical circles and cultures. Not all inhabitants of the world treat what the clocks show with equal seriousness.
In these contexts, what is interesting is the activity of artists, which escapes the boundaries between work and free time, which also reflects the uncertain/unclear status of creators in social structures.
Is art a serious profession or a hobby? Is it work or pleasure…? During the residency, we intend to explore the topic of free time in artistic and artistic-social projects. What does this time mean for us – artists? What is it for the community of Ustka and what is it for tourists who come there for holidays.
Monika Czarska – graduate of the Faculty of Graphics and Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. Creativity in the field of painting, graphics and multimedia. He creates painting objects, installations and site-specific works. In November 2018, she defended her PhD degree with distinction at the Wł. Academy of Fine Arts. Strzemiński in Łódź. In 2016, at the 25th Festival of Polish Contemporary Painting in Szczecin, I received the award of the Mayor of Szczecin for the paintings “Yes, No” and “Maybe”. “When working, the concept is very important to me. My works are characterized by a synthesis of thoughts, symmetry, sparse colors, minimalism and geometry. When creating, I analyze the concept I want to talk about. I break them down into their first parts and give them a graphic form. I turn fragmented aspects of a given concept into geometric symbols, creating maps of the topics I discuss. Shaping the form of an image is a path, a set of symbols and text. Paintings are a story, illustrated with a thought process, which determines their form. In my works, lines and geometric forms have hidden meanings, they are synonymous with veiled content. My paintings contain words written by hand or from a stencil, always in English, which, in my opinion, is the Esperanto of today’s times. An analytical approach to the topics I undertake accompanies me not only in painting, but also in my site-specific works, graphic designs and installations. – Monika Czarska
Alicja Kujawska – ethnologist and cultural anthropologist. Author of the Visual Anthropology program for ethnologists (at the Nicolaus Copernicus University and the University of Humanities and Economics in Łódź) and Design Anthropology for students of design (Pedagogical University of Krakow). She cooperated with the University of Silesia in Cieszyn, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Patio Art Center, World Crafts Council, Texi and Textilmagazine, and the Political Criticism Club. In cooperation with Zamek Cieszyn, she initiated international workshops for designers, Wool Design in Carpathians. Initiator of the Polish edition of Art+Feminism for Wikipedia. Editor of scientific and popular science texts. Exhibitions: individual “Anarcho-syndicalists”; group exhibitions: “MatriarchArt”, The Demon in Me”, and together with a group of Frakcja artists: Rebelle, Plexus, Łącze, Akcja*Frakcja*Libacja, Dziennik Frakcji, ABGEFAHREN, Selection, 66 Days, Gray End, Kafka’s Sisters, Women’s Beach, Artystka_artystce, (non-)human community. She is interested in design, 18th-century embroidery and soft sculpture.
Roksana Kularska-Król – doctor of art, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź in 2007, receiving a diploma with honors from the Painting Studio of prof. Ryszard Hunger. Two annexes to the diploma were made in the Photography Studio of prof. Leokadia Bartoszko and the Drawing Studio of prof. Zdzisław Olejniczak. In 2021, she defended her doctorate at the Faculty of Art of the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, under the supervision of prof. Tomasz Sikorski. He deals with painting, photography, video and illustration. He also creates projections for theater performances. In 2007, she was nominated for the best diploma of the year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. She received a distinction in the “Beautiful Tile Wanted” competition, and the project was presented at the “Ceramika do Squared” exhibition as part of the Łódź Design Festival 2010. Together with her husband Sebastian, she creates the robosexi artistic duo. Their areas of activity include: object, installation, video, performance. In 2014 and 2022 she received the Artistic Scholarship of the City of Łódź. She received the Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage twice (2017, 2020). Member of the Frakcja group of artists and the Art and Documentation Association.
Anka Leśniak – intermedia artist, researcher, lecturer at the Intermedia Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, member of the Frakcja group of artists and the TFR archive collective. She took part in over 100 projects, individual and collective exhibitions. Winner of the Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Fund for the Promotion of Creativity (2011), the scholarship of the President of the City of Łódź for Creators and Animators of Culture (2015) and the Cultural Scholarship of the City of Gdańsk (2016). Artist at the KulturKontakt residency in Vienna (2016). In 2019, she was awarded the OeAD scholarship (Scholarship of the Scholarship Foundation of the Republic of Austria). Feminist issues, site-specific art and art in public space are close to her. In his performative works, he addresses topics related to memory, “re-construction”, herstory, ethnic and cultural identity, migration and language. Author of the book Invisible inVisible. Women disconnected from history. Site-specific artworks on abandoned buildings (Łódź: Stowarzyszenie Sztuka i Documentacja, 2017). Author of the following projects: Body Printing (since 2007), Top Models (2008-2009), Fading Traces (2010), Registered (2011), Invisible inVisible (2015-16), patRIOTki (2016-20), Lost Element. Re-construction of the Witch (from 2019).
Aurelia Mandziuk – graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. Professor at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. Artist, curator and art animator. Co-founder of the Polish branch of the World Crafts Council. The creator and long-time director of the PATIO Art Center in Łódź, where she was the organizer and curator of over 150 exhibitions and artistic events. Editor and co-publisher of two artistic and theoretical magazines. Co-founder of the Art and Documentation Association, co-organizer of the Art and Documentation Festival. Co-founder of the first group of female artists in Poland “Frakcja”. Initiator and participant of many international artistic projects. She creates site-specific objects and installations, and the material of her works and activities is primarily fabric. Her recent works concern mutual communication and interpersonal relationships.
Beata Marcinkowska – intermedia artist, art animator, academic, resident of Łódź. In his work, he deals with various aspects of modern man’s life, paying attention to the symbolism of the body today. He carries out his own artistic projects – objects, installations, collages, land art and performance. He takes part in exhibitions, artistic actions, transmedia and site-specific activities in Poland and abroad. It implements artistic and social projects for the residents of Łódź as well as research projects on the active reception of contemporary art by children and adults. Author and co-author of publications, textbooks and art exercises. Member of the Art and Documentation Association and the Polish Committee of the International Association for Education through Art InSEA. Frakcja, associated with an intergenerational group of artists and art theorists. He teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts. On Strzemiński in Łódź. She is interested in personal development, deepening mindfulness and awareness of one’s own body and voice. In her free time, she practices yoga.
Artistic residency for the Grand Prix
Winner
of the Young Art Biennial "RYBIE OKO" 10
Nadia Markiewicz
video art
September 2023
Project title: “goth & grotesque”
Nadia Markiewicz was an artist-in-residence at the Baltic Contemporary Art Gallery: Centre for Creative Activity in Ustka as part of the Grand Prix at the 10th edition of the Youth Art Biennale “Fish Eye”. The artist worked on a project entitled ‘goth & grotesque’, looking at issues of the gothic and the grotesque and searching for themes where they intersect with disability. The results of the artist residency will be on display during the artist’s solo exhibition in March 2024.
Nadia Markiewicz is a visual artist, performer, creator of installations and videos. PhD student at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. Graduate of Prof. Mirosław Bałka’s Studio of Spatial Activities at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She also studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and completed an internship at the Studio of Performance at FaVU VUT in Brno led by Julie Béna and Jakub Jansa. Resident of the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York (2023). Winner of the Europe Beyond Access prize awarded by the Zachęta National Art Gallery and the British Council (2021) and the Grand Prix at the 10th Youth Art Biennale Fish Eye (2022). Her work has been shown in nemerous venues including the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Kunsthalle Bratislava, and Sto Lat Gallery in New York.
Bogusław Bachorczyk
sculpture
September - November 2023
Project title: “The beach is a huge studio”
The artist’s works depict the encounter between man and nature, wave and shore, foot and sand, eye and horizon, face and wind, hand and the marine debris ….
Returning to Ustka after 7 years, Bogusław Bachorczyk will finalise the ideas and concepts he started at that time, hoping at the same time for some “new hunts”. The sea, throwing rubbish ashore, will contribute to the artist’s creations by constantly provide new materials for his work.
The Baltic Sea, iodine, the inhabitants of Ustka and walks will become the impulse and motivation to create a sculpture about everyday life at the seaside.
Bogusław Bachorczyk (born 1969) is a painter, sculptor, draughtsman, multimedia artist and exhibition curator. He holds a postdoctoral degree, is a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and heads the 3rd Interdisciplinary Studio at the Faculty of Painting. Graduate of the sculpture class at the Kenar Secondary School in High School in Zakopane and of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków with a degree in the studio of Professor Włodzimierz Kunz (1998). He defended his doctoral thesis “Game of Enchantment” in 2011, habilitation “Pure 17” in 2013. Scholarship holder of the City of Nuremberg, winner of the Józef Czapski Scholarship. In 2012, he received the Rector’s Third Degree Award for his achievements in artistic and teaching work, and in 2017. Rector’s Second Degree Award for achievements in artistic and teaching work. In 2019 he received the Creative Scholarship of the City of Kraków for the project “Our Garden”. In 2019, he received the Bronze Medal for Merit to Culture Gloria Artis. His works have been presented at over 50 solo and group exhibitions, including Bunkier Sztuki, the National Museum in Kraków, the Museum of Photography in Kraków, Galeria Zderzak in Kraków, Galeria Atak in Warsaw, ABC Gallery in Poznań, Galeria ASP in Gdańsk, the Labirynt Gallery in Lublin, the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art in Słupsk, the Tatra Museum in Zakopane and the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko. He is the creator of the concept and executor of long-term creative projects, including the diary-sketchbook (since 1986), the “Pracownia Czysta 17” project (since 2003) and the open-air gallery “Nasz Ogródek” (since 2018). In his art, often presented in the form of installations with elements of performance, he combines various media. He invites artists from other disciplines, such as actors, dancers and poets, to collaborate with him on his projects. He is also an illustrator and author of art books. He addresses the legacy of great artists (J. Iwaszkiewicz, W.G. Sebald, Has, A. Rodczenko, W. Niżyński, W. Hasior, Z. Ginczanka). His work is concerned with history and time, identity, and the individual discovery of a private past. He is interested in the issue of mechanisms and properties of memory, contemporary definitions of masculinity and post-batalism. He creates at the intersection of various media: painting, sculpture and photography, and uses bricolage and a combination of craft techniques and modern media.