Anna Raczynska (PL/GER)

The work of visual artist Anna Raczynska (1990, Poland) can be taken as a recurring attempt to access a world less crude than our current. Yet it would be too easy to dismiss this as a sort of escapism, but instead of seeking distraction, it seems that “what normally has to be endured” is being analyzed and translated into a broad range of material, creating dreamy images that are equally hopeful and desolate. The carefully crafted sculptures and installations – objects with dubious usability – are all drawing from the visual reality of daily life but yet ignoring most rules of naturalistic resemblance by drastically altering size, material or context in an often abstractive manner. This personalization of the common creates the necessary space to establish certain moments of narration, but unlike the literary genre of the fable her aesthetically pleasing works do not claim to have a didactic outcome. Any effect of consolation is being held back by implementing the cynical, which stands opposed to a strong element of naïveté throughout her œuvre. Her viewers are left in the void between empathy and mockery, in confronting situations that appeal to everyone’s very own humane core – would you laugh if I dropped my ice-cream?

Three-months residency is organized in cooperation with Creative Industry Košice. The residency program is supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council. The partner of the program is Creative Industry Košice.