Pangea United 22.03–9.06.2019

Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi Więckowskiego 36 msl.org.pl It is more than likely […] that we are no longer the citizens of any one particular state. Deep down, we carry within us the countries that we were born in: this means their chaotic diversity, rivers and mountain ranges, forests and savannahs, the changing seasons, birdsong, insects, air, sweat and humidity, grime and city noises, laughter, disorder, and confusion.

Achille Mbembe, Politiques de l’inimitié, 2016 [forthcoming in English, 2019, as Necropolitics]

The history of Pangaea, or ‘Pangaia’, is the tale of a mega-continent that existed about 200-250 million years ago, combining all the currently separated continental blocks. The fragmented pieces of what was once Pangaea still bear the traces of that oneness. By making use of this geological metaphor, the Pangea United exhibition invites viewers to imagine our earthly community as one household, one home. Artists taking part in the exhibition ask a number of questions in order to spark our ecological imagination. How can prototypes created within the art world teach us responsibility for the often-unnoticed suffering inflicted on other bodies? Can the logic of industrial live- -stock production lead to a similarly objectifying production of human life? What is the environmental potential of humble actions, such as scrubbing floors with recycled fabric, seeding cress in public spaces, or organizing meetings where women can collectively discover the burdensome legacy of patriarchy? What can we learn from people who live in communities under threat of extinction, many of whom belong to so-called indigenous and folk cultures? What would be the value of goods, money and labour in a future devoid of all prospect of economic growth? Why will the borders, zones, and territories that divide the Earth forever remain fictitious and porous? The artworks presented in this exhibition form a kind of essay, a meditation on the matter of human attentiveness and the interdependence of life in all its forms. For far too long, notions such as the utility of production and consumption, the borders between states, or the hierarchies of species, have been used to categorize terrestrial ha- bitation. This exhibition contends that we need to do away with such stridency in favour of images, concepts and feelings capable of expressing the more complex relationships that both unite and divide us. This shall necessitate the harnessing of an awareness of the fragility and malleability of each life, always intersected and stirred by others – other people, living organisms, machines and ecosystems. This approach represents the basis of our search for community. Imposing the intimate scale of a household on the all-encom- passing broadness of our planet can create a new way of looking at these relationships. Perhaps such a filter would allow us to look at how we relate to them with more care, that is with a responsibility for our own position, power and violence, both within the community and within the environment shared with those whom we know, and with those whom we may yet come to know.

Joanna Sokołowska Agnieszka Brzeżańska

Dissection of a Thought, 2013 oil on canvas, 150 × 200 cm courtesy of the artist and BWA Warsaw

What do thoughts look like? How can we ‘show’ intelligence, energy, spirituality, and the flows of emotions conglomerated and dispersed within us as individuals? In her work, Agnieszka Brzeżańska poses questions about the elusive relationships between the various forces of nature and the manifestations of life on Earth, which she perceives as a living and malleable organism. In order to do so, she draws on various sources of knowledge and looks to combine them in an unorthodox way. She takes her inspiration from contemporary physics and philosophy, as well as alternative cognitive systems such as alchemy, parapsychology, esotericism, folk knowledge and deep ecology; all the while setting out forms that capture the complexity of flows between the extra-personal states of matter and energy, which could, for example, drive the human mind.

Alan Butler

On Exactitude in Science, 2017 two-screen HD Video, 5.1 Surround Audio, Edition 5 + A.P., Koyaanisqatsi (© IRE 1983, All Rights Reserved) courtesy of Godfrey Reggio and the Institute for Regional Education

What would the images of Earth and its human inhabitants look like if we were to look at them as if they were an alien planet and species? To what extent do images generated in contemporary techno-culture match our own experience of reality? In 1982, Godfrey Reggio posed these questions in the cult experimental film, Koyaanisqatsi, and in 2017 Alan Butler took up these themes in his two-channel video installation, On Exactitude in Science. In this work, he juxtaposed a projection of Koyaanisqatsi synchronized with his own remake of the film,KoyaanisGTAV . When shooting the remake, he recreated the original frame-by-frame, using the virtual worlds of the Grand Theft Auto computer game series (GTA V). The title On Exactitude in Science was taken from Jorge Luis Borges’ Del rigor en la ciencia (1946), a short story about a fictitious civili- zation that created a monumental 1:1 scale map of its land. As a result, the map overlapped with the territory to such an extent that the two became indistinguishable from one another. In Koyaanisqatsi, Reggio experimented with the medium of film in the analogue formats of 16 mm and 35 mm film in order to capture the enormous scale of the transformation of human experience of the environment by way of the technoscience used in mass production and con- sumption. For this purpose, he looked to the example of North American society at the end of the 20th century. In the Hopi language, the word ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ means ‘the unbalanced life.’ Butler translates and transposes Reggio’s film experiment into a cyber-cultural simulation of reality at the beginning of the 21st century.

Carolina Caycedo

The Land of Friends, 2014 1 channel HD video, 38’10”

YUMA, or the Land of Friends, 2014 digital prints, satellite images

courtesy of the artist, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, and Instituto de Vision, Bogota

Carolina Caycedo’s selected works arose from her interest in river ecosystems and the tra- ditional communities associated with them. In this case, Caycedo was drawn to the area along the Magdalena River, known before the colonization of Colombia as Yuma, i.e. the Land of Friends. The starting point for her work with this area was the construction of the El Quimbo Dam, a dam and hydroelectric power plant, by an international private corporation. The mural consists of a series of satellite images of the area (especially of the Huila Department) deeply affected by the environmental impact of the investment. In the composition, the artist juxtaposes and mixes various scales and layers of shots, emphasizing the multidimensionality of the transformations that have taken place. The film The Land of Friends documents the indigenous community that for generations has been connected to Magdalena, and relates, in turn, its struggle for survival in the face of the privatization of a common good that hitherto had been shared by all. Indeed, the investment would wreak havoc and destruction on the surrounding environment and landscape. It also led to the relocation of the local communities and the loss of both their heritage and livelihoods. Caycedo records the complex interweaving of these indigenous cultures with the river, and the threatening prospect of their destruction looming over the deep environmental conscio- usness, linking the spiritual, cultural and economic aspects of life in the area.

Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová

Things in Our Hands, 2014 melted Euro coins, foam cylinders courtesy of the artists

This work is a kind of speculation on the future of money and its use value. The individual elements are made of melted Euro coins, baring visible traces of the hands that held them, which are displayed on foam monuments. Their form freely refers to archaeological objects, such as tools, ornaments or objects of worship. However, their purpose remains unclear. The monetary objects, released by the artists from their social function as established means of measurement and exchange, become a foreign object of indeterminate use value. Are these the traces of pre-capitalist economies based on the exchange of goods and services and hunting and gathering? Or are these objects perhaps finds from a future, where matter, when confron- ted with virtual transactions and new ways of acquiring value, has become superfluous?

Czekalska & Golec

Avatar II Ag, 1999 silver, copper, 265 × 95 × 50 mm usage: for a five-digit, superior being collection of Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź

Avatar pop, 2019 glass, recycled paper, polychrome-plated wood (icon) edition: until stocks last usage: transporting small moving creatures – the gallery’s longest staying guests – to safety courtesy of the artists IMPLANT IHS*, 1995–2018 a space for living, small, mobile, sentient creatures, who in this life received an unfavourable form, i.e. the body of an insect. Architectural incrustation, 1995 * Insect Home System courtesy of the artists

The duo’s selected works are prototypes of devices designed for insects. The Avatars – should the prototype come into use – will serve to transport insects to a safe place where people would not be able to trample on them. The word “avatar” comes from the Sanskrit avatāra. In Hinduism, this means the incarnation of a deity who descends from heaven to earth in mortal form in order to bring about salvation. According to this story, man, by ridding himself of pride and paying attention to all creatures, even the smallest and almost unnoticeable, has a chance of receiving spiritual succour from these same creatures. In Avatar Pop (1880-2018), the artists made recourse to the altered function of a sacred icon. They fixed this icon to a wall back-to-front, obscuring the holy image and rendering it as a simple object – a shelf for a glass to carry insects. The earlier version – Avatar II Ag (1999) was made of precious metals with both symbolic and antiseptic properties. IMPLANT IHS* (Insect Home System) (1995-2018) is the prototype of an architectural application, a shelter for insects.

Agnes Denes

Tree Mountain – A Living Time Capsule – 11,000 Trees, 11,000 People, 400 Years (Triptych), 1992–1996, Ylöjärvi, Finlandia, 1992/2013 type-C print, 91.4 × 91.4 cm

Tree Mountain – A Living Time Capsule 1992–1996, Ylöjärvi, Finlandia, 2013, coated paper, 64.7 × 91.4 cm Flying Bird Pyramid – for the New and Future City, 1994 lithograph with metallic dusting on paper, 63.8 × 90.5 cm Half-bird Space Station, 1994 lithograph with metallic dusting on paper, 63.8 × 90.8 cm Wheatfield – A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan, 1982 Photographic documentation

from the series Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space, 1976: Map Projections: The Egg, 1976 lithograph on paper, 94 × 73.5 cm Map Projections: The Snail, 1976 lithograph on paper, 74 × 91.5 cm

all works courtesy of the artist and Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York

Since the 1960s, Agnes Denes has been transforming the various aspects of transdisciplinary knowledge about the interconnected dynamics between the natural processes and social organizations. She has been inspired by physics, mathematics, social sciences, philosophy, linguistics, poetry and music. The artist’s activities have proved to be pioneering in the wider context of ecological awareness in contemporary art and land art. In the cycle Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space (1976), Denes drew on mathematical formulas and measurements from maps of the Earth, projecting them onto drawings of organic forms, such as eggs, snails or trigonometric forms. As a result, the perspective was disturbed and the familiar representation of the planet suddenly morphed into unknown dimensions and relations. Other explorations like Flying Bird Pyramid – for the New and Future City and the Half-bird Space Station (1994) emerged from a series of sketches and prototypes of future cities and buildings. They were preceded by the Pyramids series (1969 onwards), in which the artist contemplated the logic of various geometric forms from the perspective of the Mathematical Theory of Pro- bability. As a result of further work on this subject, the motif of the pyramid was transformed into liquid, dynamic forms, which would provide mobile habitats for various forms of life. Denes’ numerous activities in the public space focused on raising ecological awareness in environments subjected to intense transformation by people, such as cities, and industrial and post-industrial areas. In 1982, the artist cleared a landfill site in the centre of Manhattan, primed the soil and sowed 2 acres of wheat (Wheatfield – A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan). After four months, the repurposed field yielded its first harvest. 500 kg of flour obtained from the grain was delivered to 28 places around the world. The field itself was located between Wall Street and the former World Trade Center, opposite the Statue of Liberty, and this juxta- position of the wheat field – an archetypal symbol of abundance – and the icons of globali- sation and economy based on financial speculation, created a clash between two inherently incompatible ways of thinking about prosperity. Denes emphasized that with this action she had wanted to draw attention to the immoral priorities of bankers and their ilk, who generate inequality and hunger in the world. As part of the Tree Mountain – A Living Time Capsule – 11,000 people, 11,000 trees, 400 years initiated by Denes in 1992-1996 on the site of the former Pinziö Mine, near Ylöjärvi in Finland, 11,000 people planted 11,000 pines. As a result of this cooperative initiative, a monumental mountain (420 m long, 27 m wide, 28 m high) of elliptical shape was created, with trees planted according to a mathematical formula derived from the golden ratio observed in the structure of pineapples and sunflowers. All those who participated in the initiative were appointed as the caretakers of these trees, and since the time-span of this social sculpture is projected to be an estimated 400 years, these same caretakers will pass the mantle on to future generations. Although everyone involved retains ownership of the trees, the land on which they were planted can never be sold and will forever be held for the common good. Agnieszka Kalinowska

Watering Hole (Tunisia), from the series Watering Hole (pitchers from Somalia, Iran, Tunisia, Burkina Faso and motor oil containers), 2016 paper string, 37 × 25 × 24 cm

No Owner Bouquet, 2008 paper string, 85 × 110 × 120 cm no title (Eastern Wall 7), 2013 paper, 41 × 46 × 14 cm Pillory, 2016 pigment print on photographic paper, dibond, 75 × 50 cm Rain, 2013 acrylic on MDF, 4 modules, each: 42 × 42 × 4 cm works courtesy of the artists and BWA Warsaw

My Home is My Fortress, 2006 straw, white cotton string, green acrylic string, 72 × 52 × 50 cm

collection of Anna and Tomasz Lubiński

The common thread running through Agnieszka Kalinowska’s works selected for the exhibition are the techniques and material traces of marking territory and property, and taming and orga- nizing the environment for human inhabitation. The artist is interested in the conventionality and almost unnoticeable porosity and leakiness of these borders and designated zones (No Owner Bouquet and My Home is My Fortress). Created from ephemeral, cheap materials (such as straw, string, or paper), Kalinowska’s sculptures emphasize the imperfection of tools used by humans in disciplining and assigning specific forms to the environment. The matter which these tools are made of – although desig- ned with their own purpose and utility in mind – manifests itself in her works as a variable that is continually subject to the passage of time and dependent on relations with other environ- mental factors that cannot be fully controlled. Kalinowska’s Rain and the Eastern Wall refer to the erosion and transformation of various elements of infrastructure and architecture. Rain consists of painted MDF boards resembling a sidewalk slowly hollowed out by raindrops (what does it mean that water wears away the stone?). On the other hand, The Eastern Wall (created from paper) is part of a series inspired by now-deteriorating wall decorations which date to the 1960s and 1970s. In this series, the artist analyses the anomalies, imperfections and irregularities of geometric and modernist patterns; as well as the changes they undergo over time. Pillory is a photograph showing a tree equipped with a construction intended to (unsuccessfully) control the processes and direction of its growth. The title refers to the practice of punishing people by way of imprisonment and publicly exposing them in an uncomfortable, subordinate position. The anthropomorphisation of non-human nature on the one hand, and the perception of social order through the prism of animal atavisms on the other, is one of the strategies by which the artist traces the multiplicity of flows between the various, seemingly separate, natural-cultural processes. Waterhole is a series of sculptures inspired by the form of traditional jugs from Somalia, Iran, Tunisia and Burkina Faso and canisters for petrol or oil. The sculptures are made entirely from paper string. Deprived of the names of products and any attribution to a particular culture, the “jugs” resemble antique objects and, simultaneously, the still-valid universal symbols of human survival, dependent on access to water and the migratory imperative. The cultural artefacts of civilization are incorporated back into the life cycle of the other, non-human animals. Tamás Kaszás

Pangea, 2011 woodcut printed on paper board, 44.8 x 56.5 cm

Lost Wisdom (Sci-Fi Agit-Prop), 2016–2019 installation

courtesy of the artist

The installation, designed and built by Tamás Kaszás, is the prototype of a display for presen- ting the visual culture and knowledge of the society of the future – the inhabitants of Pangea. Art provides Kaszás with a laboratory of practices, knowledge and aesthetics that could prove helpful in creating ideas about life following the passing of current earthly resource management practices. The notions of the unknown take shape based on existing but peripheral alternatives, considered anachronistic or utopian (unprofitable), and marginalised in the globally dominant model of the capitalist economy. In his art, Kaszás references collective folk knowledge, per- maculture, grassroots social movements, and modernist egalitarianism. The materialization of this latter concept in his work foregrounds the use of easily accessible, inexpensive materials and technologies, as well as the practice of self-sufficiency in order to live a good and auto- nomous life. Formal production and ideological solutions are all closely related here. Among the various techniques used by the artist, traditional practices play a unique role, such as wooden constructions, screen-printing, woodcut, and linocut. Kaszás’ graphics refer to visual codes and traditional methods pertaining to the replication of activist materials, such as the readily produced agitation prints from the 1920s. According to Kaszás, in the event of material shortage and the destruction of our digital technology infrastructure, such techniques could again come to prominence. Among the intuitions and future scenarios suggested by the artist, one can discern both a hope for the mobilization of emancipatory, creative social capabilities centred around collective, grassroots organizations that would work for the benefit of an expanded Earthly community, as well as the escalation of violence related to the intractable struggle for dwindling resources.

Diana Lelonek

The Center for Living Things, 2016 – onward installation courtesy of the artist

The Center for Living Things is a kind of institution established by the artist in order to collect and study the relations between used, discarded objects and bacteria, plants, fungi, worms, and other organisms of the ecosystem. Lelonek’s research looks to explore processes classified as decomposition, which entails achieving maximum states of diversity and fertility following the end of the cycles of production and the consumption of goods, i.e. at a time when they [the goods] most often disappear from consumers’ view. The seat of the institute is the Botanical Garden of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poznań, where the artist, together with scientists, is working on the creation of descriptions and the presentation of collected “deathplants.” Teresa Murak

from the series Sculpture for the Earth, 1974 photographs and drawings on paper

Rags of the Visitation Nuns, 1988 series of photographs, 18 × 13–18 × 13.3 cm Leaven Bread, Summer 15 July – 15 August, Lillehammer series of photographs

all works courtesy of the artist

Teresa Murak is one of the precursors of land art and performance art. She produces work in relation to particular spaces and landscapes, and employs organic materials such as cress, dust, soil, river mud or bread leavening. Her own body and the sensual experience of the move- ment of matter is the perspective from which she approaches the environments in which she works. In her practice, she seeks to capture the relationships between different states and forms of life, energy flows, the processes of growth and entropy, and the spiritual dimension of the cycles in the life of nature and social organizations. Sculpture for the Earth (Equilibrium of Balance), the first piece in the Sculptures for the Earth series, was created in 1974 as part of a symposium held in Ubeboda, Sweden. This project had its place among activities characteristic for the beginnings of Land art, which were rooted directly in the soil and bodies of artists and the use of physical force. Over the course of thirty days, the artist, with the use of a shovel, dug out a spherical hole in the ground, the radius of her height, simultaneously forming a mound in the matching shape of a hemisphere. Later, she covered both surfaces in soaked grass grain. Soon after the grass had sprouted, and against the artist’s wishes, the sculpture was destroyed by bulldozers (allegedly due to the absence of a building permit). Photographs from the series Leaven Bread, Summer 15 July – 15 August document Murak’s work on marshes as part of the Nature–Art. Art–Nature symposium held in Lillehammer, in 1987. The materials used in the work were soil from the swampy area of a Norwegian forest and bread leaven, a material used in her work from the 1980s onwards. After placing the bread leaven in the swamp, the artist ‘fed’ it with flour and kneaded it every day for forty days, so that it grew to a diameter of one and a half metres. Later, Murak commented on the meaning of this experiment in the following terms: ‘For me, river mud is a ‘matter of being’ full of inner energy – particles of dead organisms and remnants of metabolic processes, among which billions of microscopic creatures fight for survival. The only thing keeping them alive is moisture.’ (https://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/6582-zasiew.html, access: 7.02.2019). Rags of the Visitation Nuns is a series of works created with the use of old, worn-out rags found by the artist at the Visitationist Church in Warsaw. The nuns of the affiliated convent had been using them to polish the church floors. Made of hemp fibre previously cultivated in the convent garden, the rags were exceptionally durable. Murak subsequently used them in performances at art institutions and in various public spaces, where she looked to recreate the labour of cleaning the floors. She also sowed cress on the scraps of material. Referring to Christian symbolism and topoi, she placed them in the context of environmental care for all forms of life. Christine Ödlund

The Plant Drummer, 2010 pen on paper, 107 × 227 cm

The Stress Call of a Stinging Nettle, 2010 watercolours and pencil on paper, 85 × 197 cm

collection of Michael Storåkers

Christine Ödlund draws on natural sciences and esoteric traditions, translating them into music, painting and video. She is interested in phenomena either inaccessible to human senses or incomprehensible to anything beyond scientific discourse; and the ways in which they can be translated into the language of visual arts and music. The selected paintings were created as a result of her research into communication between plants and experiments in transposing of this language to musical notation. In order to learn the language of plants, Ödlund studied with an environmental chemistry research cohort at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Their experiments into the reaction of a nettle plant whose leaves had been attacked by butterfly larvae were starting points for both paintings. The artist was interested in an analysis of the plant’s stress signals conveyed by the release of certain chemical components. This interest also extended to the reaction of other plants to this alarm. Later, Ödlund translated her findings into sound and musical notation.

Artavazd Peleshian

Inhabitants (Obitateli), 1970 digitalised film, 9’ courtesy of Films sans Frontières, Paris

Peleshian’s short experimental film addresses the motif of the transformation of the natural ecosphere as a result of people’s labour, as depicted in avant-garde Soviet cinema. One of the most influential works in this context is Dziga Vertov’s 1926 film, The Sixth Part of the World, endorsing the economic potential of life in the various USSR nations; in tandem with praise for the exploitation of natural resources. However, Peleshian’s eponymous inhabitants are not people, but wild animals, depicted both as vast herds and individually, as if they were one large organism set in motion by a common effort. No humans are visible in this community universe, and yet their presence – the alleged source of the animals’ visible panic – is suggested through the author’s use of “distance montage.” The technique employs poetic, associative combina- tions and the repetition of key images without a single, coherent narrative. Christine Ödlund Alicja Rogalska

The Plant Drummer, 2010 (Im)personal development, 2015 pen on paper, 107 × 227 cm video, 4’40’’ participants: Karolina Krauze-Strzelec, Aleksandra Richert, Teresa Gwizdka, The Stress Call of a Stinging Nettle, 2010 Natalia Kaźmierczak, Ewa Ciszewska, watercolours and pencil on paper, 85 × 197 cm Patrycja Golec coach: Małgorzata Gąsiorowska collection of Michael Storåkers camera: Habryn / Wawrzoła

courtesy of the artist

(Im)personal development is a video work drawn from a coaching workshop and focus group interviews conducted by Małgorzata Gąsiorowska, a coach, feminist activist, and cultural ani- mator. Female residents of Łódź, all of whom had different professional profiles, and who came from all walks of life, attended the session. Indeed, many of them were juggling several jobs, which included working as a baker, factory worker, university lecturer, babysitter, graphic designer, waitress, call-centre worker, editor, secretary, bailiff’s office worker, hospital research coordinator, market vendor, cook, or receptionist. The one thing that they all had in common was a declared need to change their employment situation and to define a new direction for themselves in terms of personal growth. However, the tools and techniques taken from corporate coaching were not used to promote individualistic thinking about success and self-development. All the while taking into account their individual experiences, the aim of the workshop looked to capture the common experiences of women as influenced by their relationships with others; and as a result, it endeavoured to explore the consequences of structural gender inequalities. When a group of women meets and begins to talk about barriers and dreams, other impro- babilities suddenly become possible, such as the doing-away of national borders, universal paternity leave, and the ecological education of our children. Soon, all things are possible.

Jerzy Rosołowicz

Double-sided Neutronicon, 1969 own technique, glass, metal, 45 × 45 cm

Neutronikon S-35 (Double-sided Neutronicon), 1971 own technique, glass, metal, 27 × 80 cm Neutrons – painting IV, 1964–1965 mixed technique, oil painting, modelling clay, canvas, 63 × 54 cm Neutronikon P 16, 1971 own technique, glass, 35 × 35 cm Telehydrographic 209 dedicated to Halina Skalik, 1980 cardboard, crayon, ink, marker, type, 69.5 × 49 cm Telehydrographic 45 in tribute to impossible art, 1981 crayon, ink, marker, paper, cardboard, 50 × 50 cm Telehydrographic 209 dedicated to Halina Skalik, 1980 cardboard, ink, marker, 50 × 70 cm Flowers 84, 1981 Japanese tissue paper, water-based paints, washed ink, 38.3 × 29.2 cm

Flowers 75, 1981 Japanese tissue paper, watercolours, washed ink, 25.5 × 19.1 cm

collection of Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź

Dew Collector, ca. 1962 ink, paper, 21 × 30 cm Neutrdom – cone and sphere, 1967 ink, paper, 30 × 42 cm Creatorium of the Millennium Stalagmatic Column, 1970 ink, paper, 48 × 25 cm

collection of the National Museum in Wrocław

Jerzy Rosołowicz was a conceptual artist and art theoretician. The selection of works presented in the exhibition provides an insight into the various aspects of his experiments: with art proposed as a model of designing more harmonious relations between the human technical civilization, cultural products and the natural environment. Rosołowicz was convinced of the negative impact which modern society has on nature. In his theoretical texts, Teoria funkcji formy [Theory of Function Form] (1962), O działaniu neutralnym [On Neutral Action] (1967), Próba odpowiedzi na pytanie, co to jest świadome działanie neutralne [What is a Conscious Neutral Action? An Attempt at an Answer] (1971), he proposed the idea of art as a ‘neutral action’ that could introduce order and harmony by way of ‘neutralizing negative values with positive values.’ According to Rosołowicz, ‘neutral actions’ should imitate and translate into the language of art those forms found in nature, which he himself regarded as a model set of ‘forms with an absolute function.’ In Rosołowicz’s work, the geometric code of abstract art was one of the means to search for the order and structure of natural processes. In the 1960s, the artist created paintings using modelling clay (e.g. Neutrons – painting IV). These paintings were rhythmic compositions comprised of forms resembling cells or atoms as seen under the microscope. Rosołowicz harboured the utopian hope that alongside art, cybernetics, urban planning, architecture, sciences, psychology and sociology could be particularly helpful in neutralizing our civilizational tensions and antagonisms. To this end, he created works resembling inter- disciplinary scientific prototypes stimulating ‘neutral action,’ such asDew Collector, Creatorium of the Millennium Stalagmatic Column or Neutrdom – cone and sphere. The latter was the model of a construction consisting of a sphere and an inverted 100-metre high cone. A slow-speed elevator that would take people to the top of the cone was to be installed at its core, whereas the construction would be illuminated at its base; and as the elevator ascended, the surround- ings would become darker. Once it reached the top – the centre of the circular base of the inverted cone – it would become a beacon of brightness. From there, a path would lead to the edges of the circle, and the final stage of the transition between the darkness and luminosity would see the visitors floating in space. The sphere next to the cone would be set into a rolling motion by the people inside. Pressing down, its movement would activate electron devices, causing the desired effects of imbalance, antigravity and unexpected sensory phenomena, such as taste, sound or olfactory. The Creatorium of the Millennium Stalagmatic Column proposed a device that would be used to create artificial cave conditions, wherein over a period of one thousand years, the dripping water, saturated with calcium carbonate, would form a metre-high column. In the mid-1960s, Rosołowicz began work on a series of pieces made up of optical glass melted into polychrome wood (Spherical reliefs), metal or glass (Neutronicons). These Neutronicons were intended to be light-reflecting wall fixtures, which created the effect of moving matter. Other versions, designed to be suspended in space, were instruments intended to induce a ‘neutral’ view of reality by way of an optical glass that distorts and reverses the image. According to the theory of neutral action, Neutronicons are interdependent on environmental conditions. Neither constructing nor altering anything, they simply draw attention to the relationships woven from light, shadows, reflections, eyesight and matter, among which seeing bodies move. Towards the end of his life, Rosołowicz became interested in teleradiesthesia as a continuation of his theory; and in the 1980s, he began work on the Telehydrographics series, which involved reconstructing the course of water veins in his friends’ flats. The watercolour series, Flowers, was Rosołowicz’s last work, and marked a return to the motif and techniques of ‘getting to know’ and ‘organizing’ individual organic forms, which had characterised the beginning of his career in the 1950s.

Sin Kabeza Productions (Cheto Castellano & Lissette Olivares)

SEED: Visualscapes from the Future, 2012–2017 4 channel video installation courtesy of the artists

The footage you are about to see was captured by intrepid documentarians who travelled through spacetime to learn about coevolution in future homosapien societies. In this queer world, animals are scarce, seeds are illegal, sexualities and fetishes voracious. Like any anthropozoological encounter, there are gaps in translation. We cannot be sure what these ritualistic performances and multispecies encounters encompass, but we believe that these natural-cultural intraactions harbour revolutionary potential and clues for the way we might transform our homosapien consciousness today. We hope you will join us in being affected by the aesthetics and erotics of a not-so-distant future.j

Zhou Tao

Fán Dòng (The Worldly Cave), 2017 single channel 4K UHD projection, 47’53” courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space, Beijing

Zhou Tao’s film was shot in various locations across the globe, including the South Korean port of Incheon, the Spanish island of Menorca, Fán Dòng in Shoguan, China and the Sonoran Desert in the United States. In a decentralised way and with no script or narrative, the scenes show people and animals adapting to life in the changing conditions, as well as a landscape in constant transformation – the results of global production. From among the human pro- tagonists, we see the diasporic Hakka people, who are displaced, always on the move, and constantly looking for new ways to survive. Simultaneously employing multiple scales, Zhou Tao’s film uses panoramic shots intertwined with close-ups of individual interactions, fluently shifting [our] attention from the struggles of humans and animals to a contemplation of the changing array of colours and the spectacle of chiaroscuro originating in the ‘artificial’ sources of light. The landscapes of Fán Dòng are synthetic, which means that the depicted organic life and the experience of bodies moving within the technologically-developed infrastructures are seamlessly intertwined and incessantly undergoing a transformation of sorts. Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor

The Order of Things, 2011–2012 16 mm film transferred to DVD, 7’35” courtesy of the artists

The film’s editing is based on the parallel interweaving of two loosely connected threads. One of them shows the baking of bread in a Middle Eastern bakery in Berlin’s Kreuzberg. Hanging on a wall inside, an abstract painting is the silent witness to this labour. The second scene depicts some kinds of enigmatic exercises involving a globe, first formed in the shape of a pyramid and later set on fire. Celebrating our Freedom, a poem by the Zimbabwean writer Chirikure Chirikure, links these juxtaposing scenes. Referencing the perpetual chain of suffer- ing and violence in both colonial and post-colonial contexts, the poet urges us to open our eyes and see a horizon of hope visible just beyond the actual horizon. Or perhaps this horizon has already been given to us, but we need to look closer to see further ahead; for example, to notice the labour of baking bread for the entire world?

Monika Zawadzki

Nursing Mother, 2014 epoxy resin, acrylic paint, 150 × 100 × 214 cm

Cyber-Mother, Cyber-Son (Sorrow), 2014 epoxy resin, acrylic paint, 310 × 200 × 33 cm Towel, sheet. No 2, 2013 wood, acrylic paint, fabric, 300 × 68 × 7 cm Minuet with Cows (from the series Human and Animal Rights), 2006 acrylic paint Boiled Head, 2014 epoxy resin, acrylic paint, ca. 50 × 50 × 50 cm courtesy of the artist

Monika Zawadzki designs models and environments for the development of a new ethics of relationships between people, non-human animals, machines, objects and the various, so-far unidentified, elements of ecosystems. One of the critical points of reference for her work is the industrial breeding of animals for meat. In response to the fact that this violence has long become rationalized and widely accepted, Zawadzki has created works that negate the hierarchies of species, and emphasize the connections and flows of energy and matter between the different forms of life and life cycles. The consequence of relations designed in such a way is a future whe- rein men and women are deprived of their uniqueness, their individual features, and their existing advantage. In other words, the machine-based, technologically-refined violence, which they inflict on others in order to conquer the world, will eventually come back to haunt them. As a result of the objectification and dismemberment of the bodies of others, humanity, too, so Zawadzki contends, is bound to become both objectified and fragmented… piece by piece. For Zawadzki, however, this destruction is creative and may just represent a chance for a new beginning. Dobrawa Borkała

Breathing Symphony – workshops

Breathing is one of the most important bodily functions achieved outside the control of the mind, which means that usually we do not pay it much attention. In the Breathing Symphony project, sound structures, frequency, amplitudes and rhythm constitute internal work, and their source is our own body. Time is determined by the rate of our breathing. During the workshops, I would like to create a space for observation and experimentation which takes breathing into account. I will share my knowledge about breathing techniques gleaned over the course of several years researching the Breathing Alphabet. We will discover how we can use breathing in order to control our reactions, moods, and emotions. By changing the rhythm and depth of our breaths, we will learn to adjust the functioning of the nervous system and move from a state of alertness to one of relaxation and regeneration. Our explorations will take the form of multi-breath scores. In our work, directed largely inwards, we will always remember that with each breath we connect to one another, whether it be plant ecosystems, or indeed the entirety of earthly existence. Anyone can become a part of the Breathing Symphony, because its artistic material is the air that we all breathe.

Edyta Jarząb

Vocal workshops

The voice is a bridge between the private and public spheres, the interior and exterior, myself and others. The sound rooted in carnality (phone), language (logos), my animalistic nature (zoe), my history and social training (bios), all go together to make up my individual voice. I work with voice and hearing/listening as a tool for transcending that, which is human, animal, mineral... Through song, I seek out the state, or the process, of ‘becoming everything’. I look at the relationship between voice and language, technology, gender and species. I reveal the thread that links the systemic silencing of women with the silence of animals that, without a voice, simply become meat. I would like to explore art and culture’s often recurring motifs: ‘becoming animal,’ the taking on of animal forms in fairy tales, animal figures speaking with a human voice, the symbols of becoming, feeling and character. During the workshops, we shall ‘swallow our ears’ and sing for an old, blind pigeon. We shall focus on storytelling, together building structures — rhythms and harmonies, listening and silence as a condition necessary for creating music. We will improvise, weave songs from whatever we can find, explore the space, use our entire bodies as instruments, and see ourselves as sensitive receivers of soundwaves. Improvisation, as I understand it, is a polyphonic meditation unrelated to any religion or philosophy. My practice is closely related to the now-familiar avant-garde practices of Fluxus and the adventures of Pauline Oliveiros or John Cage. My activities have a therapeutic dimension, allowing for deep relaxation and the development of trust, curiosity, and the imagination. TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION with curator, Joanna Sokołowska, who will also be joined by a number of the exhibition’s contributing artists Saturday 23 March, 13:00 MEA PULPA WORKSHOPS Saturday 13 April, 11:11 and 13:13 Saturday 11 May, 11:11 and 13:13 We all produce paper waste daily. While we can discard it as recycling, shedding both the nuisance and responsibility, this waste can also be reused. The Mea Pulpa workshop will demonstrate how to reuse such old paper as new and unique – as paper that can transform the ‘sin’ of producing waste into leaven for the creation of a new system of living. Prowadzenie: Barbara Kaczorowska, Luiza Łuszcz-Kujawiak FILM SCREENING On the Third Planet from the Sun dir. Pavla Medvedeva (2006, 32’) i Lettres du Voyant dir. Louisa Hendersona (2013, 40’) with an introduction by / introduced by Marcel Schwierin Thursday 23 May, 18:00 SUNDAY AT THE MUZEUM – Re-Use Sunday 26 May, 12:00-16:00 Programme: 1. MEA CULPA workshops for children 2. Lectures and workshops by representatives of the Zero Waste campaign 3. A craft fair showcasing the works of artisan-tinkerers from Stare Polesie 4. Crockery Doctors workshops for adults BREATHING SYMPHONY WORKSHOP, Dobrawa Borkała Saturday 1 June for detailed information and booking see: msl.org.pl VOCAL WORKSHOPS, Edyta Jarząb Sunday 2 June

for detailed information and booking see: msl.org.pl Events and Vitamin Creative Space, Beijing courtesy of the artist film still (detail) Fán Dòng ( The Worldly Cave ), 2017 Zhou Tao Curated by: Joanna Sokołowska Exhibition Design: Matosek/Niezgoda Exhibition coordination: Monika Wesołowska, Michał Nowakowski Cooperation: Karolina Karolak Graphic design: Gra-Fika Text: Joanna Sokołowska Translation: Joanna Figiel Copy-edition: Barry Keane Print coordination: Martyn Kramek

Cultural Institution Run jointly by Patron of of Łódź Voivodeship The Ministry of Culture Muzeum Sztuki Government and National Heritage in Łódź Partner

This exhibition is the next stage of a project that began in conjunction with the Edith-Ruß-Haus für Medienkunst of Oldenburg.