OCTOBER 27, 2018 / 6+
On October 27 at 6:00 pm, the ZARYA CCA library and screening hall will host the presentation of the results of the art residency of Kasia Wolinska (Berlin) and Rafał Dominik (Warsaw). The artists will introduce the multidisciplinary project, Gravediggers, which draws on contemporary choreography, sculpture and video art. Immediately following the presentation will be a conversation with the artists, with a simultaneous translation from English to Russian. Admission is free of charge, for ages 6+.
The Berlin-based choreographer Kasia Wolinska has long been interested in bridging sculpture and dance and in exploring the ways that choreography can express the concepts of form and space so inextricably linked to the medium of sculpture. In her performance for the ZARYA art residency program, Wolinska turns to sculpture of the Neolithic era. Meanwhile, her colleague and collaborator, Polish sculptor Rafał Dominik looks to the architecture of Russian Modernism.
This project is closely connected to the theory of the body as an archive, a concept that Wolinska develops in her work as a choreographic theorist. This is precisely where the title – Gravediggers – arises. It refers to the body's ability to store historical memory, to preserve the ideas invested within it in the previous eras, and to serve as a tool for cultural archaeology.
Wolinska describes the impetus for the project as such: “Departing from the desire to virtually reconstruct the most famous pyramid in Russia we dive into the complex web of material histories and appropriations. In our collaboration, we seek the intersections and possible artistic bridging between sculpture and choreography. The monumentalism of forms that inhabit our collective memories and thrive through times become qualities to be reproduced and played with through dance, 3D sculpture and video art. In the creation of tangible (sculpture) and ephemeral (dance) objects, we want to blur well-defined temporalities of historic(al) and artistic matters and speculate on the futurism of the Monumental. We explore the performative potential of shapes, carvings, and spatial relations in order to propose an inter-medial choreography that mobilizes the alive and the (un)dead.”
ZARYA AiR would like to express gratitude to the curator and researcher of contemporary dance, Anastasia Proshutinskaya, for her assistance and expert evaluation during the art residency’s 5 th Open Call in 2017 Kasia Wolinska and Rafał Dominik would also like to thank the philanthropic organizations, Gdansk City of Freedom and the Institut Adama Mickiewicza for their support of the artists’ participation in the ZARYA AiR program.
*Kasia Wolinska (b.1990, Gdansk, Poland) is a graduate of the Dance Department at Music Academy, Łódź, Cultural Anthropology Department at University of Łódź and Dance, Context, Choreography Program at HZT Berlin. Dancewebber 2015 Since January 2013 she's been developing her practice Hi Mary that was presented in Berlin, Gdańsk, Łódź,Norberg, New York, Warsaw, Kalisz, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. She's been a Centro Selva resident in 2014 and transeuropa Festival in 2015 in 2016 she was a part of the Global Practice Sharing Program ( Movement Research/ Art Stations Foundation) in New York. Her recent work develops at the intersection of choreography and sculpture. She runs a blog danceisaweapon.com. For more info, please visit: http://kasiawolinska.weebly.com/
Rafał Dominik (b.1985, Warsaw, Poland) graduated from the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (diploma supervised by Leon Tarasewicz, 2009). He creates animated films, digital paintings, collages and videos, devises ‘domestic scale’ sculptures and 3D interactive objects. In his constant exploration of pop culture, Rafał Dominik’s work exhibits the artist’s fascination with mass consumption’s influence on visual culture, an influence that was particularly strong in Poland after the fall of the Berlin wall. The artist also sources a lot of his inspiration from the visual aspects of new technologies which we encounter every day in virtual reality. He has exhibited in the most important contemporary art institutions in Poland, most recently at the Zachęta — National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Galeria Arsenał in Białystok and the BWA in Katowice. He has also realized commissions for private firms, such as Mercedes Benz Poland, and ING Polish Art Foundation.