The Diamond Way. Interdisciplinary Creations Studio exhibition in Rondo Sztuki Gallery
The exhibition accompanies the premiere of ‘The Pawnshop’, a film by Łukasz Kowalski, at the 19. MILLENNIUM DOCS AGAINST GRAVITY festival.
During the last year, the students of our studio have made multiple trips to the pawnshop, observing the place and the people who work there. They had the opportunity to talk to Łukasz Kowalski and see him at work. Most of the students visited the pawnshop at its old and new seat, and could observe the move. The group’s attention was captured by the objects and their various meanings: the board games pawned by their owners, obsolete business handbooks on VHS, china, books, as well as using the pawnshop space as set for performative activities.
Our studio’s curriculum emphasizes the idea that accompanies work so the topics we explored were inspired by the possibility of observing or even participating in the everyday life of the place. The works, their themes apparently unconnected, in fact constitute a network of meaningful connections which provide a commentary on life not just in the pawnshop context but also in a wider scope: they refer to the choices in life, failures, nostalgia, kitsch, even power... As Darek Rzontkowski commented: ‘Imagination by pledge of pawn.’
Exhibition participants:
Maria Bąk, Klaudia Brzezińska, Magdalena Ferdyn, Aleksandra Górka, Weronika Kasprzak, Barbara Klus, Katarzyna Królak, Jan Kukułka, Jakub Padula, Sandra Szyszka, Lesław Tetla, Igor Warykiewicz, Joanna Zdzienicka
Coordinators:
dr Joanna Zdzienicka- Obałek
dr hab. Lesław Tetla
Cooperation:
Łukasz Kowalski