Wojciech Gilewicz / Artistic residency – Ustka 2023 / 1.03 – 30.04.2023
Wojciech Gilewicz
Artistic residency – Ustka 2023
1.03 – 30.04.2023
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.
Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art / Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka Zaruskiego 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 waste manifest themselves already at the level of terminology itself. The search for and acceptance of what is discarded may be a universal practice that transcends ecological themes. During my residency, I juxtaposed “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 waste 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, the furniture design from the 1960s-70s and other items salvaged from garbage by a younger generation of sustainability-driven vintage afficionados is a well-known phenomenon in Poland. During my residency, I worked in the ceramics studio. While learning about this medium in practice, I tried to find a common denominator between the noble and demanding technology of ceramics and the experimentation and my personal fascination with waste. I used the slogan used by the Municipal Management Company in Ustka: “Thanks to us, the world is better” [Dzięki nam świat jest lepszy], which appears on the garbage trucks serving the city as the title of my exhibition. (Wojciech Gilewicz)
Wojciech Gilewicz (@wojciech.gilewicz) is a painter, photographer and video maker. His latest film “Trash Walks” made in New York, premiered on his solo show in Biała Gallery in Lublin in 2022, is a kind of walk through the city with garbage of all sorts in the background, where themes such as trash diving, no-waste culture, circular economy and freeganism are explored in a rather free narrative with the help of the film protagonists. In his projects, Gilewicz appears on both sides of the camera adhering to the principles of self-reliant economics aka. DIY. From 2017 to 2021, the artist co-ran Beach64retreat by the Atlantic Ocean in Rockaway, Queens, New York, a grassroots, independent and free of charge 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 [Inne Towarzystwo], operating in Warsaw since 2022.
“Artistic residency – Ustka 2023”
The project partner is the PZU Foundation
