Curators: Nadia Burda, Apolonia Chętko, Hanna Czekalska, Michalina Kuśmierek, Lidia Strzelec, Franciszek Właziński
Idea, coordination, realisation: Magdalena Gonera
Production: Beata Bocian, Aleksandra Kmiecik
Exhibition stage designer: Maja Pawlikowska
Light production: Artur Frątczak
There was a look at the beginning. We commenced the project entitled “Points of View. Youth on the Triennial” by inviting young people (aged 8 to 14) to interpret, from their own perspective, the artworks presented at the “16th International Triennial of Tapestry”. They were given the opportunity to create catalogues in which they, independently, described and photographed the artworks, which they found the most important and most relevant to them.
The next step was to invite the project participants to create their own exhibition, i.e., to play the role of curators and artists. This is how the Earth Given(up) was created – a presentation in which the artistic fabric becomes a medium capable of transmitting the scream of the young generation of Earth’s inhabitants.
The works representing this hermetic field of art became of a painfully current expression in the eyes of the young curators. In the course of works on their selection, it was out in the open that the most important issue for Lidka, Nadia, Hania, Apolonia, Frank, Michalina, and Adam is the clash between man and nature – how they interact on each other and what we can do to… just continue to be.
There is something very moving about their choices and the objects they created for the sake of this exhibition. After several months spent on working together, the children came down with an honest and courageous statement, convincing their parents and grandparents that perhaps it was not too late. But under one condition – we all need to hear their voice.
We created this exhibition during pandemic and isolation times, while being exposed to the stress of having to meet the deadline and working in completely different conditions. At the same time, this new situation strongly corresponds to the theme of the exhibition. Fear, uncertainty, anger, disappointment, hope, a sense of community/isolation – these represented the emotions accompanying us while refining the concept. However, the very idea of focusing the exhibition around eight themes: earth, water, air, man, animals, plants, city/industry, philosophy – was come up during workshops conducted by Zofia Dubowska-Grynberg and Karolina Iwańczyk at the beginning of 2020, when the pandemic was discussed as about a terrible threat, but still distant from our daily-life reality. Nowadays, many people think so about the effects of climate change.
What makes the exhibition unique is its topicality and accessibility. Works from the Museum’s collection, mostly presented at the previous editions of the International Triennial of Tapestry – although they still hold the rank of works of art – were confronted with objects and comments developed by the project participants. By dint of this, not only do they take on the character of artistic but also journalistic expression; they become arguments in the discussion about the impact of man on the environment. For the purpose serving to comply with the message of the exhibition, together with the participants and the arranger Maja Pawlikowska, we decided that
as many materials as possible, to build the exhibition space and objects, will be recycled or donated (building materials from past exhibitions, rubbish, furniture). While being fully aware, we decided not to print promotional materials, whereas the posters were made by the participants themselves, by using unprinted pages of posters from previous exhibitions.
When constructing the exhibition, assistance was given by numerous people, and now it’s the time when I’d like to thank them very much. The entire team of the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, our families, friends and acquaintances, parents of the participants, and people completely unrelated to the museum were involved in the organisation of the exhibition because it concerns important things. As the originator and coordinator of this project, I’m proud of the results of our joint work. When viewing the exhibition, you shall remember – those who receive this planet from us in the condition for which we have worked for several hundred years, making
it subordinate to ourselves, are talking to you.
Who will listen to them?
The exhibition is part of the “Points of View. Youth on the Triennial” project, co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage originating from the “Cultural Education 2019” programme from the Culture Promotion Fund and from the funds of the City of Łódź.