Mercredi 18 Mars 2015 13:01:30 par Paulina Gautier-mons dans Expositions

The second edition of TRAFO MEDIA LAB presents a dialogue between two emerging artists exploring the history and changing functions of places. “Dead Vistula”, a series of photographs by Mateusz Kiszka, examines the area of an artificial estuary of the Vistula, formerly regulating the river flow during the spring thaw. His photographs document the time-
affected landscape, a seemingly trivial place that has witnessed a number of important events in the history of Poland.

The video “Warsaw Municipal Gasworks” by Urszula Kozak shows the interior of the water-filled rotunda. The impressive  building was a part of the Warsaw Municipal Gasworks that was closed down in 1978. The artist interferes in the space of the abandoned and decaying structure.

© Ursula Kozak

The series of 29 photographs „Dead Vistula” is Mateusz Kiszka’s diploma project completed in the studio of Piotr Chojnacki at the Poznań Academy of Arts in 2012. It features the area along the 24 kilometers long arm of Dead Vistula. The artist captures deserted fishing villages, wrecks of British ships supplying food after World War II, the decaying Gdansk Shipyard, a dike built by Dutch settlers in the 17th century and Westerplatte peninsula located at the mouth of the river flowing into the Baltic Sea. The series was inspired by the classics of American documentary photography including Joel Sternfeld, Joel Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore and Alec Soth. However, according to Wojciech Wilczyk’s blog “Hiperrelaizm” (hyperrealism), Mateusz Kiszka has his own individual style, and the scenery along the Vistula has little in common with the American landscapes pictured by Sternfeld or Soth. There is no comparison between the terrain, building forms and, most importantly, lighting conditions. Photographing the landscapes, Mateusz Kiszka does not only search for attractive-looking shots. He is interested in sites that carry the weight of historical experience. The historical aspect, combined with the stillness of water and degrading river banks, interferes with the peaceful static shots. The apparent tranquility of the photographs seems to fade away, turning into a sense of emptiness and longing for lost opportunities.
The two rotundas are the remnants of the Warsaw Municipal Gasworks. They are commonly referred to as the Polish “colosseum”. Until 1978, they were filled with huge tanks storing thousands of cubic meters of gas used to illuminate the capital. Urszula Kozak reinterprets the space of one of the two structures presently filled with stagnant water to reveal the architectural beauty and harmony of the monumental interior. The artist dealt with a similar theme in the past in her video “Zarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant”. She treated the plant as a deserted “body” subject to gradual biodegradation, a unique monument to technology, essential and irreplaceable in the past but harmful today. As opposed to the video made in Zarnowiec where the camera gently documented the artist swimming in the artificial pool at the abandoned industrial complex, the latest work shows Kozak only for a short moment. The artist uses a single still frame to film her intervention into the space of the gasworks. Colorful smoke flares animate the skeleton of the building from the inside.

The original function of the monument changes as it becomes a performance setting and raises hopes that perhaps the forgotten piece of Warsaw can be rediscovered and re-appropriated.