Artistic residencies
21–27.09. 2015

Warsaw, Muranow: Archeological Cut

Trawnik oznaczony niebieskimi nitkami.
fot. Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN

"The Cut" aims to expose, through excavation, a hidden part of Warsaw's physical substance.The artists, who met on the occasion of the participation Aslı Çavuşoğlu in the artist-in-residence program A-I-R Laboratory at CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, are specifically interested in looking at the city, that is literally standing on the ruins of the past. In order to do so, they want to create a temporary (weeklong) archaeological excavation site from the 20th to the 25th of September 2015. The Cut will take place at 2B Karmelicka Street, where between 1769-1944, the Evangelical Church was based.

Ephemeral intervention is meant to be a simple gesture through which the artists would like to invite the local communities to share their thoughts on this action, to explore what the green hills hide, to debate about the destructive and building forces that shape cities and to discuss the laws which govern the development of Warsaw. Together we can interpret and merge into a larger whole what is seen and what is out of sight.

After the Second World War a few architects and urban planners developed the idea of rebuilding Warsaw utilizing the ruins and rubble, in order to establish a sense of continuity with the city’s traumatic past. Throughout the Muranów district, the construction of housing estates in 1948, a project by Bohdan Lachert, began by leveling the rubble of the ghetto. The intention was to create a settlement-memorial , set on a plateau of ruins. Such artificial soil is located in various sites of today’s Warsaw, it often becomes a distinctive feature of public spaces without bearing any apparent connection to what exists above-ground.

Artistic intervention at Karmelicka Street will be open to the public between September 21 and 15, from 1:00 till 5:00 PM.

Accompanying workshops and meetings:

PICNIC WITH THE ARTISTS

 September 20, 3:00 PM, Karmelicka Street

 We cordially invite all to attend, especially the inhabitants of Muranów.

PRESENTATION OF THE PROJECT 

The presentation of the project combined with a meeting with the artists at the museum on September 25, 6:00 PM, will be chaired by Jerzy Elżanowski from Carleton University in Ottawa whose research focuses on ruins.  

(assembly at 5:00 PM at 2B Karmelicka Street)

MEETING WITH THE ARTISTS 

September 26, 3:00 PM, Karmelicka Street

The last meeting with the artists held at the location of the intervention.

All events are open to the public.

More about the artists

Aslı Çavuşoğlu – Turkish visual artists, whose works have been exhibited in Witte de With (Rotterdam), MAK museum in Vienna, HMKV (Dortmund), ICA (London), as well as during the New York Performa. Next year they will be presented, among others, in the New Museum Triennial and 14th Biennale in Istanbul. More information on the artist at: http://aslicavusoglu.info/

Simone De Iacobis and Małgorzata Kuciewicz – CENTRALA project group is a Warsaw architect collective working on critical artistic statements on Polish space.

More information on the artists at: http://www.centrala.net.pl/

The project is under the honourable patronage of the Mayor of Śródmieście District of the city of Warsaw.

You can find out more about the project “Open Museum – Education in Action” under the following link.

The activity “Open Museum – Education in Action” is carried out within the project “Jewish Cultural Heritage”, component “Faces of Diversity”. Supported from the Norway and EEA Grants by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.