01.05-30.10.2009

 

Artists:
Liverpool – Gdańsk: Dorota Buczkowska, Roman Dziadkiewicz, Elżbieta Jabłońska, Łukasz Jastrubczak
Gdańsk – Dolne Miasto: Ross Dalziel, Kevin Hunt, Maeve Rendle, Rita Slater.
Curators: Agnieszka Kulazińska, Kevin Hunt, Rita Slater

Project “Under the bridge” results from a reciprocal exchange with partner organisations, artists and curators in Gdansk, Poland. It Originally developed as a part of For The Likes Of Us... an exchange programme between the Liverpool Biennial Big Table partners and 'corresponding' organisations across Europe, contributing towards the objectives of the Cities on the Edge network. Under the bridge is within the framework of Polish Year in Great Britain.

 

3-11 June, Roman Dziadkiewicz, Bridges (tools to overcome limitations in emotional involvement)

The creations of Roman Dziadkiewicz go far beyond traditional forms of art. The artist operates on the border between artistic and social activities. His projects may take the form of a workshop (Thought Workshop, 2004), surveys (e.g. What is important and what is the most important since 2000?), texts and manifestos (e.g. Doing Nothing Manifesto, 2004) or long-term research studies.
Dziadkiewicz’s activities are an ongoing process – an experiment, where the artist refrains from the privileged position of creator, taking the role of a researcher, observer or research object. The subject of the research is the various possibilities of an artist’s being in the oppressive cultural structure, the progressive disintegration of a piece of art in the context of political, social and economic issues. Roman Dziadkiewicz is mainly interested in the dichotomy of reality and fiction.
The project in Garston entitled Bridges (tools to overcome limitations in emotional involvement) will be an attempt to build up experimental links between individual, private experiences and group experience, and it will be an attempt to stand up to indifference and its opposition (hidden, historical, forgotten, potential, dead, longed-for, shameful) to emotional involvement (in private and/or public affairs). Indifference is the first and troublesome perspective which defines attitudes towards Garston (and similar places) from outside – from the perspective of the artist/tourist. The objective of the events is to overcome powerlessness or at least to construct a few abstract and metaphorical (model) bridges towards involvement. The artist explains that Garston with its social and cultural locality, history, topography (old docks, mud, interpenetration of decreasing industry with shyly returning nature), is compared with singleness, individual character and histories of individuals invited to the project. The artist also has the ambition to create yet another link – between the macro and micro scales.
The project will take the form of a series of discrete actions, interventions, micro-performances and observations, performed together with the Garston community which has been invited to co-operate.
Dziadkiewicz Roman studied at the Pedagogy Academy in Opole and at the Painting Faculty of the Art Academy in Cracow (graduation work in 1997 under Prof. Stanisław Rodziński). He practises an interdisciplinary approach operating on the border between artistic and research traditions. He is also an exploratory artist in the social space – as an activist and animator of cultural and social life. He was a member of an initiative group which founded the SAOZ Artistic Association Health Care Centre and foundation 36,6. He lives and works in Cracow.
He has presented his works at individual and collective exhibitions in Cracow, Warsaw, Kiev, Stockholm, Cleveland, Dresden, London, Budapest and elsewhere. Some selected artistic and social projects: 2001 The Eating Holiday – social space; 2002–2004 The Camel Workshop – road performance; 2002 Dom (Home) – co-creation of a collective place for living, art, work and play, Kraków; 2002 Money – not funny (Pieniadze szczescia nie daja), workshop and exhibition, Manhattan Gallery, Lódz; 2003 – 2004 The workshop of thinking (with f36,6), Malinowe, Mumbai, 2004 Switzerland in the Middle East (the workshop project accompanied the Symposium ‘Geography of changes’), Kunstmuseum Bern, 2005 SFX: Publicznosc, research and art project, Poland / Germany (and group exhibition at Westfälischer Kunstverein, Muenster); 2005 Robinson Crusoe or Stranger than Paradise, Spaces Gallery, Cleveland (OH), 2006 Imhibition, National Museum, Cracow, 2009 C-D-G, National Art Gallery Zachęta, Warsaw.