Julie Tocqueville (Rouen) and Barbara Gryka (Lublin) selected for next CreArt AiR in Linz
CreArt has selected the following projects to be developed inh the next CreArt AiR in Atelierhaus Salzamt in Linz (Austria) in October:
JULIE TOCQUEVILLE (1988 Rouen)
"Southern Alps, New Zealand"
Visual artist in residence at the Hall, Rouen, place of collaborative creation and exhibition and self-managed by visual and musical artists.
In recent projects, I have worked on the composition of images. How are the images constructed ? What are they made of ? What defines an image above all ? In parallel with this work, I conducted research related to the landscape. When can an area really be considered a landscape ? And what really defines it ? The "Southern Alps, New Zealand" project combines these two concepts and these two lines of research. It has made it possible to go beyond the borders of the simple definition of an image, by achieving in a way a "handmade augmented reality " mixing reality and fiction. I have brought to a deconstructed image elements of real life (plants, shrubs, stones) which enter into the composition and simultaneously create a third dimension. The sliding of the image to the sculpture is done under the pretext of decomposition of the figured thing. It is a question here of trying a new approach and of considering a new definition of reality and image.
I would like to work in the same way, at in Atelierhaus Salzamt, on the composition of a landscape, but this time from suspensions, images, prints on pvc tarpaulin and on
different supports in order to invent a new landscape, a new reality. This time, I would like to mix several elements from different horizons, different temporalities and different geographic situations but still looking for coherence in order to totally invent a new landscape, which, even if it is composed of elements actually existing would be completely fictitious. It would be a suspended installation (if possible) in the exhibition space, plan by plan.
BARBARA GRYKA (Lublin, 1992)
"Marzanna"
She started artistic education at the Liceum Plastyczny im. Jozef Chełmoński in Nałęczów. Since 2013 she has been studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, at the Faculty of New MediaArt. She realized BA diploma in the Department of Audiovisual Space prof. Grzegorz Kowalski. A 2019 graduate of the Mirosław Bałka’s Studio of Spatial Activities in the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In her practice she deals with performing arts.
In Polish tradition, there is a holiday of drowning the Marzanna. It originated from the pagan tradition. Marzanna was the slavic goddess of winter. She symbolizes Mother Earth, who dies for a few months, or rather falls into a winter sleep. She was frequently associated with the passing of souls into the afterlife or with bringing disease. The ritual of drowning aa puppet of Marzanna was to get rid of the snow season and make way for spring. Throwing the puppet into the river usually preceded setting her on fire. Thanks to this, the ritual had strong cleansing properties. Finally, burning destroys a thing forever and splashing with water “cleanses from evil”.
The holiday is about creating the puppet resembling a human from elements of nature: straw, branches from bushes and trees, dried herbs, with the addition of beads, wreaths, with a headscarf. It was believed that along with the burning of the Marzanna, bad emotions and experiences from the past, lived during the cold months are
removed. It interested me, how the pogans living many years ago in Poland had good contact with nature, believed in her force, power of healing, worshipped her as a goddess. Today we don’t all feel as an integral part of nature. The world we live in goes through major and irreversible climate changes. Unfortunately, this year Icannot say that I saw snow in my country, arding off winter seems impossible, it’s part of the past. We are witnesses of burning forests, drought, lack of water, climate warming, melting of the glacier. We are destroying our home, in which not only we live. In the proposed project, I’d like to create a performative action inspired by the drowning of Marzanna. Construct a ecological form of the puppet and create a ritual in which I will drive away our bad behaviour, choices that lead to the state we are in.
Yet the Marzanna would not be either burned nor drowned.
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