MICHAŁ ŻESŁAWSKI / CREMATION / Witches’ Tower

MICHAŁ ŻESŁAWSKI
CREMATION

Opening:
6.12.2018 / 5 p.m.

Exhibition:
7.12 – 31.12.2018
Witches’ Tower /  al. F. Nullo 8 / Słupsk

„From you, as from burning chips of resin, Fiery fragments circle far and near: Ablaze, you don’t know if you are to be free, Or if all that is yours will disappear … ” *

C.K. Norwid
*Translated by D.J. Welsh

 

The idea for the exhibition has been inspired by a number of towns with a history of migration or resettlement. When we reminisce about a familiar place, we recall its space, community and culture. In an apparent monotony, a spectacle of everyday life is played out, and yet, with the passage of time, the actors change, and the urban landscape is reclaimed by nature. We see houses full of holes, and overgrown with grass. The once vibrant sounds gradually die out and the windows fill with emptiness to make room for a new history when the time comes. The starting point in the Cremation project is an experiment in which the character and translucent properties of porcelain are used to create an abstract image of the inhabitants (or depending on the interpretation, empty spaces) through the use of hair waste from local hairdressing salons, which is combined with porcelain in order to create artifacts. These, in turn, are burned and turned into lithophates. These activities are accompanied by a narrative and a metaphor for presence / absence, space / non-place, all with the use of refractory and amorphous materials.

“From the earliest times, human civilization has been no more than a strange luminescence growing more intense by the hour, of which no one can say when it will begin to wane and when it will fade. For the time being, our cities still shine through the night, and the fires still spread”.

W. G. Sebald

MICHAŁ ŻESŁAWSKI 
A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław at the Faculty of Ceramics and Glass (2012). A degree in artistic and applied glass under Professor Małgorzata Dajewska, and a minor in graphic art at the department of screen printing run by Professor Christopher Nowicki. Winner of a scholarship to the Bezalel Academy from Arts and Design in Jerusalem, at the Faculty of Ceramics and Glass and Performance Laboratory Adina Bar-On in 2010-2011. Top 10 at the Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass Competition 2011. Winner of the Creative Wrocław painting competition 2011. Associated with the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art since 2015, where he runs Sculpture and Ceramics workshops, deals with educational activities and popularization of sculpture through exhibitions and curatorship, as well as displaying art forms in public spaces (There are no ordinary things in this world, 2016) and running social activation schemes ( 20 X 20, 2017). His artistic pursuits include painting, collage, glass and ceramic art, design. His draws inspiration from the surrounding reality and human emotions, while seeking individual solutions and means of expression. Since 2016, he has been involved in experiments in the areas of audio and video and synesthesia in the visual arts. He has presented his sculptures and paintings at both group and solo exhibitions, including: Stanislav Libensy Award (Prague) European Glass Festival (Wrocław) Methods (Bratislava), Glass Paintings (Krosno) and Wozownia (Toruń).

HONORARY PATRONAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE CITY OF SŁUPSK