Today, as the effects of the climate crisis affect our daily lives, we are increasingly aware that the world as we know it is being transformed. Our perception of non-human beings is also changing and we are beginning to see their agency, evident in their potential for change. In her new exhibition ‘Dry Season’, Patrycja Orzechowska invites us to reflect on the life of objects and the relationship between humans and non-humans in times of scarcity.
Patrycja Orzechowska is a renowned visual artist and author of artistic books, working with a variety of media including photography, collage, installation and ceramics. Her early projects focused on photography and collage, in which she often used photographs of adults and children doing gymnastics, placing them in different configurations and changing their meaning.
In her recent projects, the artist has been mainly concerned with OOO (object-oriented ontology) and the human-object relationship. These themes were present in Orzechowska’s last year’s solo exhibition at BWA in Bielsko-Biała, entitled ‘Object in Withdrawal’, which explored the condition of contemporary human through artefacts made from objects collected by the artist that have lost their original utility and have been reformulated, placed in a new context.
The ‘Dry Season’ exhibition goes a step further and is interested not only in artefacts and how they reflect the human condition, but also in the non-obvious relationships that arise between humans and non-humans as a result of the variability that takes place on Earth. The title of the exhibition refers to climate change, which forces both humans and non-humans to strain and adapt to new conditions. The dry season points to a particularly difficult period, which can only be survived through appropriate adaptation.
In her works, the artist uses objects she has collected, long forgotten and abandoned, which become ready-mades. Orzechowska tries to understand the original, human-given functions of these objects and then allows them to take on new forms by observing their shape and texture, intuitively combining non-obvious elements and bonding them with clay – the matter that gives them new life.
Clay is also a key element in the artist’s latest object to be presented at the exhibition, a large-scale work entitled ‘Terra Matter’. This installation is made of ceramic tiles and is in keeping with the author’s interest in the earth, both as substance and contemporary issue. When asked about it, the artist told us:
‘Terra Matter’ is meant to evoke associations with Mother Earth (Terra Mater). It is a Mother Earth that no longer feeds or with a mistake, where the word mother has been replaced by matter (substance and issue). It is a large-format modular work consisting of 180 ceramic tiles partially carved and glazed, which have been arranged in two interfacing planes, vertical and horizontal. The installation is an empty stage that individual viewers will be able to enter to experience it haptically, feel the energy and give it the moisture of their bodies. The composition, encouraging embodied cognition, is a metaphorical journey both into the depths of the earth and across its surface towards deep time.
The exhibition is curated by Aleksandra Księżopolska and Marta Koniarska, with dramaturgy by Zuzanna Bojda and collaboration of Lila Bosowska. One of the unique aspects of the exhibition highlighted by curator Aleksandra Księżopolska was the invitation of playwright and screenwriter Zuzanna Bojda to build the dramaturgy of the exhibition, in which the voice was given to a chorus of things.
The opening will take place on September 13 at 6pm at CSW Łaźnia II in Gdansk. ‘Dry Season’ will be open to the public from September 13 until November 10, 2024.
An accompanying event to the exhibition will be a workshop entitled ‘The Respiratory Symphony’, led by Dobrawa Borkala, which will take place on September 21. During the workshop, participants will reflect on their own breath, the breath of the earth, and on the relationship between the two.
