Artistic residency

Julita Wójcik

October - December 2018
 
 
Residency of Julita Wójcik in Strasbourg takes place in the frames of artist residency exchange program initiated in 2011 by Apollonia – European Art Exchanges association in Strasbourg, City of Strasbourg, City of Gdansk and LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art. Previous editions of this bilateral exchange program involved the following participants from France: Ahmet Dogan, Patrick Bogner, Jia Qiu, Dorothee Haller, Yiumsiri Vantanapindu, Stéphane Clor, Elise Alloin. Among Polish artists working in Strasbourg were: Dominika Skutnik, Dorota Walentynowicz, Michał Pecko, Angelika Fojtuch, Grzegorz Stefański, Urszula Kozak, Eliza Proszczuk. Simultaneously to Julita Wójcik’s residency in Gdansk, Hélène Thiennot is developing a project in Strasbourg. The subject of the residency exchange is analysis of the city and its forms of transformation, using projects conducted in the public space or with local participants.

During this residency, Julita Wójcik works on a project titled Mirage.

 

MIRAGE

The latest research into what might have caused the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 after the passenger ship struck an iceberg, points to the possibility that a mirage may have distorted the crew’s view of the iceberg in the distance. A mirage is an ordinary, astonishing, beautiful, magical, often dangerous, optical illusion – one that led the Titanic’s crew to sail straight into an iceberg that was hidden from view by its spectacular effects. The remarkably starlit sky reflected in the looking glass of the ocean, creating the illusion of ideal sailing conditions, which ultimately led to the greatest, most spectacular catastrophe. 

In spite of popular opinions on the nature of illusion, a mirage is a real image, not in space, but in the optical realm of the viewer. The viewer is fooled by the mirage. Or, to be more precise, the brain is fooled into perceiving such an illusion as real.
The symbolic character of a mirage is that of an impossible dream, a false hope or an illusion conjured up to fool an oblivious subject. 

On her artistic residency in Strasbourg, Julita Wójcik is looking for a local mirage as well as an iceberg – covered by it. What could be considered as a mirage is, for example, the image of a wealthy European city, which appears to the visitors. The artist focuses to analysis of the mirage phenomenon in the context of transformation, of the societal consequences that people have to deal with. She aims to look at the public sphere through the prism of mirage, at ways of organizing cities and urban planning related to the establishment of new buildings and roads. Wójcik focuses on searching for the causes of the mirage, looking at what ominous element is hidden under a promising-looking mirage.

The research which Julita Wójcik conducted over the course of the past weeks directed her towards a contemporary issue which seems inseparable and present in Strasbourg.

Tourists in the city as a mirage of The City itself?
 
Artist lives at the very center of the Strasbourg City at 122 Grand Rue. The city’s eye - the island isolated by the river canals. Small city in the Big city. Old town where the flow is mostly created by tourists. At the streets, shops, museums, restaurants, bakeries, confectioneries, places to stay – hotels, rooms for rent... All of us - tourists, all temporary visitors share a dream - mirage – that we look at original city substance and 'burghers' - the locals citizens. Do we really see it? Or we rather see a life created by visitors, European parliamentarians and other foreign sightseers, and not by the burghers itself?
How much does this touristic passage change the city? Transforms it to a kind of ‘maquette’ - chimera of its own? What indicates a burgher today? Maybe it is easier to find and define a tourist or ‘temporary burgher’ and call him ‘Airbnburgher’?
 
 
Julita Wójcik

Born in 1971 in Gdańsk, where she lives and works. Graduated from the Faculty of Sculpture at the Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts in 1997. In 2013 she received The Royal Scottish Academy Award, and POLITYKA Passport in 2012. She received grants from the Polish Ministry of Culture in 2007, 2005, 2003, 2001 and 1995/6. She has held residencies in Art in General (New York, 2006), Visegrad Fund (Prague, 2010) and the Megaproject Brazil in Belo Horizonte (2016). Her works is featured in numerous public collections, including Zachęta – National Art Gallery in Warsaw, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, the National Museum in Warsaw and in Szczecin, NOMUS in Gdansk, HorseCross in Perth/Scotland and The Israel Museum in Jerusalem/Israel.

The artist often references daily activities that are not directly associated with art: crocheting, sweeping, gardening, installing small ponds, building birds feeders, and flying a kite. These simple activities are elevated in status only after have been placed in an artistic context that ennobles them while at once deriving art of its elitist value. Wójcik’s art enables places to temporarily regain their innocence. Occasionally the reverse also happens, as when her Rainbow (2012-2015) – huge floral sculpture imitating a child’s drawing – caused an uproar in society after it was placed in Warsaw’s Plac Zbawiciela Square.her practice focuses on social relationships and stereotypes. Her work is characterised by the desire to draw attention to the underappreciated hard work (usually by women). She also addresses the relationship between public institutions and an artist, namely the precarious situation of the individual undertaking artistic activities in confrontation with art institutions. She explores how large museum spaces and related history and general theory of art influence the viewers, including changing and concealing their clean, “original” reception of works of art. As she points out, each of her actions are one-off because they result from a strong local and temporal context.