The Other Expression

The student exhibition The Other Expression explores phenomena that go beyond the collection of everyday, familiar articulations of being and acting in the world. It addresses the expressions of Others: people belonging to marginalized groups, experiences of relationships with disparate spaces, encounters with other narratives, offering a space for reflection and interaction.

The artworks presented in the exhibition raise the tensions in the expression of the everyday-unusual and the complexity of the relationship with the Other. In these moments of complexity and fractures of the familiar | the unfamiliar we encounter a different form of depiction of the familiar, with an unfamiliar issue, a different narrative, the Otherness of strangers and of oneself. The artists invite us to ask ourselves questions: What emotions accompany this encounter? What thoughts arise in the confrontation with what transgresses the norm, what eludes and overwhelms?

Olesia Nezhyva's installation, the tree, is an attempt to express her re-rooting in Szczecin, a place of migration enforced by the war in Ukraine. The ribbons hung on the tree symbolize the process of inclusion in the New. They also act as an invitation to interact with the exhibition space. Kajetan Jełowicki, on the other hand, deals with the issue of the particular perception of sound by people with ADHD. The installation, which is a metaphor of a nervous system, enables neurotypical people to experience a different reality. Krzysztof Sawicki's work encourages reflection on the discord between technological progress and human consciousness. Bioprocessors created from human brain tissue provide a starting point for questions about the source of consciousness and the position we occupy in cyberspace.

The works by Karolina Zięciak, Izabela Wowczko and Agata Jankowska address responses to diverse identities and tensions in individual and collective narratives. Karolina Zięciak tackles the topic of asexuality as a sexual identity marginalized by psychologists and therapists. Izabela Wowczko approaches the subject of women's invisible work for the benefit of loved men through a sculpture of a ladder created from the sleeves of women's clothes. Meanwhile, Agata Jankowska offers the perspective of a teenager with autism, focusing on his emotions and reactions in situations of training and sports competitions.

The artworks featured in the exhibition also address the complexity of the encounter with Otherness and its perception. Patrycja Kubisiak examines the ambiguity of gazes directed at the Others, which may be an expression of the eagerness to get to know Them, as well as a judgement leading to exclusion. Kinga Chomać-Piechota invites us to reflect on diversity and instability through images of the wolfsbane: a plant that, with its dual properties of being both poisonous and medicinal, symbolizes the tension between the familiar and the strange, rejection of and fascination with the Other. Mikołaj Tomczak confronts us through portraits and slogans of politicians with the socio-political scene of the 1990s. How do these election slogans resonate with us three decades later?

The exhibition serves as an invitation to reflect on the individual relationship with the Other and the attitude towards Otherness in the surrounding reality. The works on display not only invite visitors to engage in a dialogue with the featured narratives, but also open up a space for discovering and including Otherness. They encourage us to recognize, feel and embrace Otherness and transcend everyday, familiar interpretations.

Warning: one of the artworks plays sounds that one may find disturbing.

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