Wojciech Gilewicz residency – Ustka 2023 / 1.03 – 30.04.2023

Wojciech Gilewicz
residency – Ustka 2023
1.03 – 30.04.2023

 

Workshops / workshops for seniors
20 – 21.03. 2023

workshops / for primary students
28 – 29.03. 2023

 

„Thanks to Us, the World Is Better”/ Exhibition
Curated by Weronika Teplicka

Opening
20.04.2023 / 6 p.m.

Exhibition
21 – 27.04.2023 / 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka / Zaruskiego Street 1a

 

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.

“Artistic residency – Ustka 2023”
The project partner is the PZU Foundation