Woman Artist to Woman Artist

Aurelia Mandziuk – Anna Orlikowska

Oneiric conversation

A.M.
I was wondering what an artist can give to another artist, and I think it’s attentiveness, an opportunity to approach a person, to get to know their art, motives, inspirations or artistic strategy. This is why we are holding this conversation – so we can know each other better. And above all, so that I can know you.

Critics emphasise that your works focus on selecting small elements from the reality and giving them importance; you begin to interpret them in your own way and present them in a somewhat dark way. Your works are imbued with silence, sleeplessness, certain dreaminess. That is why I decided that our conversation would take place in an atmosphere of a certain unspokenness and oneiricity, and that we would be accompanied by your works, your films. 

Let’s start with a series of photographs. It is a triptych: Insomnia. Please tell us a few words about it.

SERIES OF PANORAMAS

A.O.

It was a series of panoramas taken a long time ago in order to show various spaces in Łódź illuminated by artificial light coming either from a TV set or dim bulbs screwed into small lamps. It was a series that earned me a scholarship, an award from Deutsche Bank, which initiated a series of different study trips, as a result of which I moved out from Łódź. It was a series that basically initiated my diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, Danse Macabre. Later, I made these works again in a large scale 3m x 1m and they were presented at the Young Triennial in Orońsko. It was the beginning of my artistic career. 

Later on, I took photos of factory buildings, because I was also interested in them; and the Insomnia series, i.e. people suspended in dark oppressive rooms, was a triptych that completed this panorama series.

A.M.

I would like to go back to the reason why I have invited you. I knew your works but I had never met you, even though we had graduated from the same Academy, even though we had lived in the same city for many years, we had certainly met at the same exhibitions or in the same places and, of course, I had seen your Drowning Room, but I only really got to know your works and your art in Szczecin, when…

A.O.

That’s when it started.

A.M.

…when you moved away and started working at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. Immediately afterwards I also got there. It seems to me that it cannot be discounted. Such a path, when people who have not met in one place, and leave completely unexpectedly. It seems to me that it was this kind of moment… There are no coincidences.

A.O. 

It’s true.

A.M. 

Tell me whether this move to Szczecin changed anything in you, in your work. How did it all happen?

A.O. 

I think it changed a lot, because I wanted to leave…. I didn’t want to leave Łódź, but I wanted to start working with young people, to start working at the Academy. The Academy in Szczecin seemed interesting to me, as it had a Department of Painting and New Media, which at the beginning was a small Chair of New Media. This was something that I was also doing. So, it was a moment of transition – a change, but I also started to use the medium of video mainly to create moving images, installations, which means that I limited myself to one medium. 

At the beginning, my approach to video was closely connected with photography. In fact, it has been a bit like photography until today. I am constantly observing and trying to find myself in this reality, which is, let’s say, ordinary and typical, small cracks, which show that this everyday world may also be amazing, it may be mysterious and surprising.

A.M.

There are also moments when you notice things that are obviously disgusting and try to give them an aesthetic form. I certainly mean your film Worms, which is sometimes difficult to bear, especially for some people. But it undoubtedly has that aesthetic form.

PHENOMENON OF PHOTOGENIC

A.O. 

It seems to me that in most of my works I deal with the phenomenon of photogenic, i.e. the fact that something that is recorded on film, for example our interview now, can have a different value after being recorded. On the one hand, using oneiricity and registering something that is on the verge of being “registerable” is the same as registering worms, which are repulsive but due to the fact that they have been recorded they turn out to be beautiful. So all the time it is an attempt to explore the possibilities of the photographic medium and what can be done with it.

My first serious exhibition was organised at the Manhattan Gallery in Łódź and was accompanied by a text by Jolanta Ciesielska, who wrote that: “I am an observer of imperceptible phenomena” and it seems to me that this is a pertinent analysis. Yet, these phenomena may differ.

A.M.

Your installations, for example Drowning Room, which was shown at the Biennale… You used seemingly ordinary objects there, but you gave them a completely different meaning. Not only through the title of the work, but also through the very form of the exhibition, where we actually saw a drowning room.

A.O.

That’s true.

A.M.

It was quite dramatic despite the fact that the installation was made of items which we know very well, we interact with them. As far as I know, they were items from your childhood.

 

A.O. 

It was such a period in my life which resulted in a lot of disturbing works. It was connected with the fact that I had finished my studies, I had to face the reality of leaving the Academy, which had created a kind of a shelter and had been such a carefree time of youth. It coincided with the fact that my grandmother broke her hip and as a result, which was also shown in one of my Danse Macabre series, she was immobilised for many years. We had to take care of her and it was a traumatic situation for her. I created this work in an intuitive way, because I took all her furniture. This room is like her whole flat, which was immobilised in this way. I don’t want to interpret it, but one could say that it is an intuitive response of a very young artist to her situation, which ceases to be a time of carefree youth and madness and becomes a contact with real life, with old age, with death, with pain.

A.M.
All the time, I’m crumpling up a piece of paper on which I had some things written down and, as you can see, I am not looking into it. Well, perhaps it’s a pity that I am not. I would like to ask you about one more thing, namely sound, as you use sound in your works, the voice of the narrator, but you also use music of Mozart or other composers. 

19 WIOSEN

A.M.

I want to ask you about your participation in the iconic punk group, 19 Wiosen. I’m going to unroll this piece now because I have a quote that has intrigued me: “these songs, we’re talking about 19 wiosen, sound as if pupils from a community centre were doing drills, but as an archaeological excavation of Polish song they begin to take on a different context”. What do you think about it and would you like to give it a new context? How did 19 wiosen influence what you did later, your contacts with people, your stage courage? What was it like with 19 wiosen?

A.O.

19 wiosen happened when I was 19, that is 19 years old and not yet studying at the Academy of Arts. In fact, for a year I played in a band that was reactivated at that time. The band had just been reactivated and was looking for someone to play the bass guitar. I was a bass player in that band. It was such an amazing time for me, because I was very young. I was 19 years old, we went to concerts, I recorded two albums, one for Radio Łódź and the other for the Music Academy in Warsaw, and this band was amazing. It consisted of people who were very interesting. In this music, at least in my times, there were moments like the use of baroque motifs, Mozart, Bach, and for me it was interesting that this band was not just a punk band, it was just so strange.

A.M.

Speaking of sounds, now it’s “silence” – I mean your Silence series. You pay attention to unspoken things. A certain drama is built there by the fact that you don’t show “something”. It seems to me that silence is often more disturbing than a sound because it is an unnatural state, a state of “lifelessness”.

Which of your recent videos would you like to draw our attention to?

DISCOVERING THE UNOBVIOUS

A.O.

My last two videos, Wool of Bats and Kingdom of Darkness, are the works that were created as a result of my love of reading and reaching out to old, already forgotten accounts of discovering the world. Because at some point in my desire to discover unobvious and everyday things, I began to be curious about what it was like to be an explorer and to see “something” for the first time in your life. We live in times when a lot of things have already been “seen” and these novelties have to be sought through other media. I began to be interested in what the opposite state was, when everything was still before us. I started reading Pigafetta’s stories and the stories about Magellan’s voyage and my films are based on these accounts. There are quotes from the books or paraphrases, stories by Marco Polo, who was the first to explore Asia. These are interesting things, because nobody reads these books now, but they are authentic stories, accounts described in a language in which, for example, coal is described as “black stones that glow”, because nobody knew the word “coal” yet. These stories are also very cruel because the contact with our civilisation was also ta final moment…

A.M. 

…of that civilisation.

LOOKING FOR WHITE SPOTS

A.O. 

And this description is its last description. This interest or searching for white spots and returning to the history which happened many years ago and which we consider normal and we can read how it was. This return is probably the result of my photographic curiosity, observation and search for new ways of discovering the world. This is what I recently found interesting. These films are animations generated by me. The film is created as a view in my head, where I can already have total control over what I want to show, because I don’t have to recreate it in reality, I can just present it in the computer. Nowadays most films are generated. Most photographs in catalogues are also generated and we don’t even realise that we have contact with it. This is also an interesting field of observation for me.

It seems to me that the starting point will always be photography. Even though I don’t use this medium any more, it is always the point… I don’t take photos any more, but photography is a critical-theoretical base that I still work with.

A.M.

It is my observation that the moment we deal with something at the beginning of our career, an issue or a phenomenon that provokes us, it often becomes a “tattoo in our brain” and we always think about it. Even when we follow a different path, we refer to our first most important experiences. Because the “tattoo in my brain” is fabric, even when I don’t make fabric in a design sense it appears as an echo in my work. I’ve mentioned that I made the reenactment of Katarzyna Kobro’s Bunny and I treated this work as a search for the first pattern that Katarzyna Kobro made. I approached it with as much care as Zagrodzki approached the reenactment of her sculptures. I also had in mind the fabric, the fact that the bunny was made of velvet, which of course I searched carefully. I wanted this work to have the value of a piece of art. Something that had an emotional value: a gift for a child, and this fabric accompanied me. It was felt, it was corduroy, it was “tactility”.

You’ve mentioned that right after studies you worked as a designer. I can’t remember in what companies… 

DESIGN

A.O.

That’s true.

A.M.

You worked as a designer even though you didn’t do a course in designing. Talented people prove themselves everywhere. How do you understand that: “it’s over and it’s good that it’s over” or “it’s cool that I’ve had that experience”, “I wish I could forget about it” or “it cannot be ruled out that I’ll think about it again”. How do you understand that?

A.O.

I enjoyed designing, it gave me a lot of pleasure. From the moment I finished studies to the moment I started working at the Academy of Art in Szczecin, with breaks, I worked as a designer in the clothing industry, in various positions. I have to say that I enjoyed this work very much and if it wasn’t for the fact that I like art more and working with students, which is also a form of artistic creation because you have contact with young people and their ideas all the time, I would probably continue working in the clothing industry because it is very pleasant.

A.M.

As you know, I’ve prepared prints for you. I’ve taken screenshots of some of your videos, photos that you sent me. These are simple multiplications, frozen in the frame and transferred onto the fabric. Something we can touch. As I’ve mentioned, one of my works is a performance – an unusual performance called Sklep Bławatny (A Clothes Shop), during which I hand out materials with Katarzyna Kobro’s bunny – a multiplied photography. By the way, there is also a bunny in a dress that I’ve sewn – a miniaturized dress designed by Katarzyna Kobro. I put a bunny in a dress for March 8^th. I’ve also prepared, as I’ve mentioned, the prints of your work. Here you are.

A.O.

Great.

A.M.

This is your composition.

A.O.

Beautiful.

A.M.

 …and I’ve also prepared film frames, frozen, multiplied. Your composition as a print really becomes you. You can say something about this composition.

SPATIAL COMPOSITION

A.O.

The composition is based on Kobro’s works, as it resembles one of Katarzyna Kobro’s spatial compositions in respect of form. The work is called Kompozycja Przestrzenna (piwnica pedofila) (Spatial Composition (paedophile’s cellar)). I created three real-life models basing on the infographics found on the Internet during the scandal with an Austrian paedophile who kept his daughter in a basement. It turned out that neither of them was real.

My compositions closely resemble spatial compositions created in search of the perfect harmony between space and plane, that were proposed by Kobro and Strzemiński in their theoretical papers.

A.M.

We have a paedophile’s basement in a nice touch version.

A.O.

Nice velvet.

A.M.

I also prepared multiplication of frames from the film.

A.O.

My video work Gatunek synantropijny (Synanthrope) tells about the life of cockroaches, and bases on finding similarities between the life cycle of a cockroach and a human. These are surprisingly similar.

A.M.

And naturally there is Wełna nietoperza (Bat Wool).

A.O.

This is my last work: the golden teeth from the Wełna nietoperza (Bat Wool) movie.

A.M.

This is my gift for you: take a bunny and some of your works in remembrance of this meeting.

A.O.

Lovely. Thank you.

A.M.

Thank you very much. See you soon. We are from Łódź, so see you in Szczecin.

A.O.

Right.

Interlocutors

Aurelia Mandziuk

Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź (formerly the State Higher School of Visual Arts in Łódź). She works with fabric, creates objects and installations within various fields of art.

Anna Orlikowska

Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. Photographer, author of video and installations. 

Video and editing: Krzysztof Lewandowski

Łódź 2021