Season 3: Nothing About That. Fictitious Narratives
“Otwock” is a project initiated in 2010 by Open Art Projects and sculptor Mirosław Bałka, with the aim to look at the town in question from the angle of art. Otwock is the hometown of Bałka, who has transformed his family house into a studio. The studio, in turn, has inspired a reflection on the relations between art and the space in which it is created. The artists and authors invited to the project are here to create in the found context, their works and gestures to uncover layers of hidden senses, facts and associations.
The project is an attempt at creating a subjective description of the place. Its first two editions of 2011 and 2012 were suspended between the public and private spheres. The works created drew on references to the studio, as well as to the urban tissue of Otwock, its history and present shape. The participating artists have included Lara Almarcegui, Tacita Dean, Anna Molska, Charlotte Moth, and Luc Tuymans. The subjects touched by the artists have set a basis for further endeavours. This year, they are to focus on the town’s relations with literature.
The presence of writers in Otwock—or of Otwock in their works—serves as a springboard for deliberations about writing and about creating narratives. The invited artists and writers oscillate between fiction and reality. Szczepan Twardoch, the author of critically acclaimed novel Morphine, has written a short story inspired by the history of Otwock. It will be published in instalments in Linia Otwocka, a local weekly, accompanied by reproductions of paintings by Aleksandra Waliszewska created after her visit to the town. Professor Joseph Rykwert, a prominent historian of architecture and author of The Seduction of Place, has written a personal reminiscence about his family home in Otwock before the war. Marek Pąkciński, writer and author of science-fiction literature, was commissioned to create a fantasy short story with action set in Otwock, where he grew up and published his first texts. November, on the other hand, will see Wojtek Bąkowski’s sound installation in the town’s public space.
Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys, who have been collaborating since the mid 1980s, have prepared a temporary intervention in Muzeum Ziemi Otwockiej. The villa, located in the forest and once occupied by the chief the Communist Security Service and his wife, will now be taken over by figures created by the two artists. Fictitious biographies will contain details of their lives and reasons for appearing in Otwock. Typically of the artists, this work too will be a strange combination of the world imagined and the actual reality.
Nothing About That. Fictitious Narratives,a public programme summarising the third season of the project will take place at 7pm on the 26th of October at Muzeum Ziemi Otwockiej. The building and the surrounding forest will be the site of the new project of Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys, accompanied by a screening of their films. Otwock resident and poet Renata Senktas will speak about the literary motives intertwining with the history of the town. Maciej Maryl, literary scholar and sociologist, will, on the other hand, deliver a paper on the balance between fiction and reality in literature and everyday life. Finally, Krzysztof Czekajewski, actor and director in the S. Jaracz Theatre in Otwock, will read the sci-fi short stories by Marek Pąkciński from his book Owadzia Planeta (The Insect Planet), which were written in Otwock in the 1970s.
“Otwock”
Season 3: Nothing About That. Fictitious Narratives
Public programme
26 October, 7:30pm
Muzeum Ziemi Otwockiej
ul. Gabriela Narutowicza 2, Otwock
Language: Polish with simultaneous translation into English
“Otwock” is carried out by Open Art Projects and Mirosław Bałka.
Coordination: Magda Materna
Curator: Kasia Redzisz
The project has been subsidised by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Project sponsor: Polski Koncern Naftowy ORLEN S.A.
Honorary auspices over the project have been extended by the Mazovian Voivoide and the Marshall of Mazovian Voivodsip.
The project has been carried out with the support of the Polish Institute in London, Muzeum Ziemi Otwockiej, Otwock Culture Centre.
More information: www.otwockstudio.pl / www.openartprojects.org
