On February 28, 2020, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute hosted the deliberations of the Competition Committee for the curatorial design of the exhibition/installation to be realized in the Polish pavilion during the London Design Biennale 2020.
The Competition Commission, consisting of:
- Barbara Schabowska-Maszenda - chairwoman of the commission (acting Director of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute).
- Ivan Blasi - coordinator of the international Mies van der Rohe architectural competition
- Victoria Broackes - director of the London Design Biennale 2020, curator in the Department of Theater and Performing Arts at the Victoria & Albert Museum
- Barbara Krzeska - manager of the Polish Design Program at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute
- Tomasz Rygalik - designer, lecturer, curator; runs the Rygalik Studio and design studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
- Tomasz Slawinski - deputy director of the National Institute of Architecture and Urbanism.
- Andrzej Szczerski - director of the National Museum in Cracow
selected from among the 15 works submitted to the competition a design by a curatorial team consisting of: Simone De Iacobis, Małgorzata Kuciewicz [{tag:Studio}], Aleksandra Kędziorek, who invited Alicja Bielawska to collaborate. The winning project, under the working title "Clothed House: Tuning into seasonal imagination" won the highest number of votes.
The anonymized works were evaluated in terms of their merit and fulfillment of the guidelines set forth in the Guidelines for Contest Participants attached to the Regulations. In the opinion of the Competition Committee, the winning work, in an original way, fit into this year's theme of the Biennale - "Resonance" (Resonance). The concept proposed by the curatorial team refers to the historical contexts of the presence of fabric in residential interiors. In an innovative way, it refers to the history of the Polish avant-garde, as well as vernacular motifs, emphasizing the importance of domestic rituals, the private interior and the ways of its creation. It appreciates the value of living in an era of forced migration, ecological challenges, pointing to a future based on a new rethinking of the fundamental values that are the basis of our culture.
[source: IAM]
Alicja Bielawska "Nebulae," 2014,
aluminum, lead, polyester fabric, 201×300×350 cm,
View of the exhibition "Before the transit after the shift," Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn
Photo by Ayako Nishibori
Comments from the winning team
We were encouraged to participate in the competition by the main theme of the London Design Biennale, as indicated by the artistic director of this year's edition, Esa Devlin. It reads "resonance." Behind this theme lies, first and foremost, the realization that everything we design and produce echoes in nature, so every design and consumer decision we make can result in a worsening climate catastrophe. We, in keeping with the theme of this year's edition, decided to approach it from a slightly different angle, emphasizing the less obvious dimension of the interplay between humans, design and the world around us. The jury, in justifying its choice, stressed the originality of this perspective, so we hope that it will also stand out from other national pavilions in the pipeline.
We can't reveal too many details yet, other than to say that in our exhibition we will explore the theme of textiles as an additional architectural layer in residential interiors. So it was an obvious decision to invite Alicja Bielawska, an artist who has been using fabrics in her artistic practice for years. She creates constellations of objects in found spaces that strongly engage the viewer's imagination and senses, and so it will be this time. Those interested in her work are encouraged to visit the Paloma restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (Museum on the Vistula River), where her work ("Dreaming at Night in the Light of Day" from 2018) hangs permanently.
Our project, like many of our previous activities, is based on historical reconnaissance, from which we derive future-oriented solutions. We already have a lot of experience in this type of work - in this way, for example, we worked with the history of Polish exhibitions during the traveling exhibition on Oskar Hansen's Open Form (curators: Aleksandra Kędziorek, Łukasz Ronduda, exhibition design: Centrala; during the Warsaw unveiling of the exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 2017, we used textiles, by the way). Recognitions of the relationship between humans, design and the environment, on the other hand, were strongly present in the exhibition "Amplifying Nature. Planetary Imagination in the Age of the Anthropocene" by the Centrala group and curator Anna Ptak in the Polish pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. Our proposal for the London Design Biennale is based on recognitions that we have been collecting for a long time, and we are extremely pleased that we will be able to present them to an international audience as early as September.
