Karolina Żyniewicz
Signs of the Times. Collecting Biological Traces and Memories
The research starting point is the concept of storied matter by Oppermann and Iovino:
‘Storied Matter’ is one of the conceptual tools of material ecocriticism, which underlines the idea that matter is not only lively, agentic, and generative, as it is theorized in the new materialist paradigm (Barad 2007; Bennett 2010; Coole& Frost 2010; Abram 2010), but also densely storied. (2018: 411).
The existence of matter means automatically plotting stories. Żyniewicz intends to examine this concept through practice by noting, articulating, or translating stories plotted by material traces of the time from the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically looking at medical masks. Pictures of people wearing masks will be historical documents of this period and with time, they will take on different meanings. This project is thought of as a long performative process divided into a number of stages. The laboratory stage of the project will be realized during the Coalesce Residency.
Karolina Żyniewicz
Karolina Żyniewicz is a Berlin-based artist (2009 graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, Department of Visual Arts) and researcher, PhD in cultural sciences (2023, Artes Liberales Faculty, University of Warsaw). She calls herself a liminal being because her work is “in-between” art, biotechnology, humanities, and anthropology. Żyniewicz sees her liminal activity as situated knowledge production and a form of autoethnography. Her projects have conceptual and critical character. Żyniewicz collaborated with two most prominent art institutions in Warsaw, the Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery Zachęta, where she works co-creating educational programs, including events with accessibility for the visually impaired and deaf audiences. She uses the achieved pedagogical skills in her independent practice.