Cecylia Malik: 365 drzew (365 Trees)
This project was inspired by Italo Calvino’s novel of 1957 entitled The Baron in the Trees.
“The campaign lasted a year, i.e. 365 days, during which I climbed the total of 365 trees, each time a different one. This is my diary but also a private, small rebellion,” Cecylia Malik describes her activities.
For one year starting from 25th September 2009, each day the artist climbed one tree selected carefully, taking into account the surroundings and the context. She also chose clothes with equal precision. The project was documented in photographs.
In this way, the cycle of 365 photographs – pictures were created. Every day, the photos were published on Facebook, thanks to which the project lived all year long, thus winning fans and followers as well as inspiring other artists to produce their own works.
Justyna Koeke: Ulica Smoleńsk (Smoleńsk Street)
The artistic project and exhibition within the process organised and monitored by Cecylia Malik and Justyna Koeke as its custodians.
The project raised the issue of gentrification and depopulation of city centres. The custodians took up this problem when a new owner of the tenement house in which their family lived since WWII considerably increased the rent, thus forcing residents to move out. Artists from Poland and Germany were invited to debate on Polish political and economic transformations. Thanks to this, the project included two points of view on the problem: firstly, the problem of Polish artists connected with the family forced to move out, full of engagement and emotions, and secondly, a distanced stance, presenting the problem from a totally different point of view.
The parents of Cecylia and Justyna moved out on 15th March and they were to return keys until 30th March 2010. Throughout this period, the flat at 22/8 Smoleńsk street became an exhibition open 24 hours a day, a studio, a meeting and discussion point, a venue of lectures, concerts, workshops, and performances.
Monika Drożyńska: Haft miejski (Urban Embroidery)
Urban Embroidery is the continuation of Aktywności zimowe (Winter Activities), the project inspired by urban space. From 2007, Monika Drożyńska photographed graffiti inscriptions on the walls during her spring and summer walks around the city. The collection of illegal graffiti served as a template for embroidery produced by the artist on long winter evenings.
Selected works executed within the Urban Embroidery project were presented on large format screens in the largest Polish cities from September 2010 to February 2011 and they became a kind of a city calendar commenting on current events.
Projections were accompanied by postcards and stickers handed out. In the Urban Embroidery, the artist blurred the boundaries between the public and the private, the female and the male, the tradition and modernity, an individual and the community.
