LIMITLESS BOUNDARY
BWA ZIELONA GÓRA, 7-30.06.2024

ARTISTS: NATALIA BRANDT, OLIA FEDOROVA, SERGEY SHABOHIN, OLHA SKLIARSKA
CURATOR: ZOFIA WIEWIOROWSKA

How easy is it to cross that line?
Was it determined by nature, culture, dictatorship?
Is it clear, tangible, recalled?
Is there something left of it? Barbed wire? Wall?
Perhaps it will still be needed?
And once it is crossed, is it possible to return?
How to prepare to cross it on your own free will? And by pressure?
What to take with?
Has anyone banned it?
Is crossing
ordinary?
suffering?
relief?
new life?
a new home?

1. Natalia Brandt, Exterritorial line, 2022

2. Olia Fedorova, It is said that curtains add the feeling of home, 2023

3. Olha Skliarska, Extended body, 2020

4. Olha Skliarska, Sometimes I dream about war and naturally I’m trying to hide but honestly I don’t know where, 2023

5. Sergey Shabohin, Canvas Cut with the Karta Polaka [1], 2018

6. Sergey Shabohin, Sharp Edge, 2018

7. Sergey Shabohin, Canvas Cut with the Karta Polaka [3], 2022

Natalia Brandt

Exterritorial line, 2022

Boundary-lines of all countries have been cut out from political map of the world. Connected together in one line they have been deprived of the “borderline” function.

Natalia Brandt

- studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań (2003-2009). She completed her diploma in drawing and painting in the studios of prof. Jarosław Kozłowski and dr Dominik Lejman (2009). Habilitated doctor, she teaches drawing at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznan. Since 2019, she has been collaborating with the Archive of Ideas. In her artistic activity she works with painting, drawing, photography, video, artist's book, creates objects and installations. She lives and works in Poznań.

Olia Fedorova

It is said that curtains add the feeling of home, 2023

Ola Fedorova's work explores the loneliness of an migrant and her attempt to acclimatise to a new space that has forcibly become home. It was created after her escape from her hometown to Graz, Austria. The theoretically common to all of us, English in a Eurocentric world tears apart the identity of an artist who uses a non-native language to work and create her art.

Olia Fedorova

- born in 1994 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Temporary based in Graz, Austria. She works with meanings and connotations by studying the mechanics and the issues of their (trans)formation through performative intervention practices, observation, and writing. After 24.02.2022 when Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine, she felt that she had to re-focus her practice so that she could contribute to the informational and cultural resistance of her country. Writing in forms of (visual) poetry and journalism became her main art activity.

Olha Skliarska

Extended body, 2020

Sometimes I dream about war and naturally I’m trying to hide but honestly I don’t know where, 2023

Olha Skliarska's works created before and after Russia launched a full-scale war in Ukraine tell the story of the experience of being a migrant on a very personal level. Both objects are protective but also restrictive. They form the décor of a flat: the Extended body is like a wardrobe, and Sometimes I dream of war and naturally try to hide, only I don't know where, like a lampshade under which to hide and experience solace or, on the contrary, to feel a claustrophobic confinement that only intensifies the fear.

Olha Skliarska

- born in 1993 in Sambor, Lviv region, Ukraine. Since 2018 she has been living and working in Poznań. Visual artist, she practices artistic ceramics, performance art, concrete poetry, drawing. She runs the Skliarska Ceramic brand and is involved in educational activities. She graduated from the Faculty of Sculpture at the University of Arts in Poznan and from the Department of Artistic Ceramics at the Lviv National Academy of Fine Arts in Lviv, Ukraine in 2016. She collaborates with such cultural institutions as the Brama Poznania, the Polish Theatre in Poznań, the Jan Tarasin Art Gallery in Kalisz, the Labirynt Gallery in Lublin, the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Lviv, the DZERELO Education and Rehabilitation Centre in Lviv, and Foundations: Jeden Świat in Poznan, Leipzig Helps Ukraine in Leipzig. Winner of the 40th edition of the Maria Dokowicz Competition for the best diploma of the Poznań University of Arts in 2020. Scholarship holder of the ‘Gaude Polonia’ Programme of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Sergey Shabohin

Canvas Cut with the Karta Polaka [1], 2018

Sharp Edge, 2018

Canvas Cut with the Karta Polaka [3], 2022

The works are from the series Canvas Slashed with a Pole's Card and tell the story of the bureaucratic difficulties that had to be overcome to obtain a Pole's Card after arriving in Poland from Belarus. The inscription on one of them WHAT IS BEHIND THE FAKE FIREPLACE refers to Pinocchio - or rather the Russian-language version of Pinocchio that differs from the original, Буратино - Buratino, who with his long nose curiously tears the canvas with the fake fireplace and finds his own theatre behind it. With this, the artist depicts his professional and artistic ambitions, reflected in the object Sharp Edge, which indicates this economic and capitalist difficulty in the artist's new country / home. The gaps in the work are a quotation of Lucio Fontana's work, which has disrupted the two-dimensionality of the canvas.

Sergey Shabohin

- born in Navapolack (Belarus). Lives and works in Poznan and Berlin. He is an artist, independent curator, author of texts about art, archivist and researcher of Belarusian culture, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Kalektar research platform for contemporary Belarusian art, member of the working group of the OpenMuzej initiative, founder and editor-in-chief of Art Aktivist portal about activism and contemporary Belarusian art. Owner of Gray Mandorla Studio space in Poznan. Curator and co-curator of several exhibitions, programs, and competitions, Belarusian art activist, author of lectures, creator of dozens of cultural initiatives, co-founder of cultprotest.me, initiator of the program aimed at creating a Museum of Contemporary Art in Belarus. The artist is also involved in interdisciplinary practices: directing films and performances, collaborating with musicians and theatergoers, and acting as a DJ.