Exhibition documentation
Record of Transitional Forms, solo exhibition, BWA Krosno (PL)
Curator: Ewelina Jurasz
The exhibition is a summary of Magdalena Ciemierkiewicz’s residency at BWA Krosno, which took place in August/September 2022, during which the artist realized a video performance entitled Cross of Fluctuation. The work takes up the theme of spirituality by reflecting on the Christian symbol of the cross that particularly dominates the landscape of Polish villages and cities. Christianity, but also the cross is symbolically associated with attachment to tradition, permanence, and immutability, which can take the form of oppression. In the performative actions, constancy and immutability are moved and even dismantled under the influence of the artist’s body movement. The personal layer of the work plays an important role – the moving cross becomes a seismograph of hesitations, doubts, and personal struggles, in light of which the idea of ultimate identification with a fixed and unchanging religious symbol seems impossible.
One of the reference points of the work is also a variation on the cross as a cultural symbol. In her work, the artist repeatedly draws attention to the diversity of forms of spirituality, its shades and varieties, which take on special significance in the context of the former multiculturalism of the borderlands. The background for Magdalena Ciemierkiewicz’s performative actions became the landscape of the Beskid Niski and traces of the presence of other cultures. The exhibition is accompanied by photographs, which are a record of the artist’s wanderings in these areas, looking for places where notions of homogeneous national identity or religious affiliation blur. The exhibition features photographs created during the residency, video works, and objects used during performative activities.
