Info

Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk
Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia
Department of Intermedia
Supervisor: Maciej Salamon, PhD

Water and plants – two media – the key elements constituting the starting point of the project Bullas serve to understand the problem of desertification and drought in Poland and to build awareness of the emerging lack of guarantee of the presence of sufficient amount of water in our climatic zone. The idea of applying a plant seed in a water bubble is an attempt to solve a personal ethical dilemma related to the human tendency to appropriation, negative motives that lead to environmental degradation daily. Giving water to another life gives meaning to the work, symbolizes liberation from regressive egoism, a desire to grasp the balance between controlling nature – “managing natural resources” – and being part of and participating in it. The complete exclusion of land, the basis of traditional cultivation, from the cultivation process generates a synthetic silhouette of an object/organism, and the transparency of such a form favors the clear representation of the essential property of water – life-givingness. The natural detail thus synthesized is meant to remind the viewer of the beautiful potential we so often waste.

The title is a Polonized plural of the Latin word for a small round object. The installation consists of plants grown on water brooders, and the exhibition is complemented by a series of photographs depicting the successive stages of development of the object organisms.

Agata Kościołowska – keenly interested in fiber art, as well as issues of ecology: self-awareness, coexistence, and her impact on the environment. In her work, she has always taken upcycling actions in the spirit of no waste. Currently, she coordinates cooperation between local artists and Druga Ręka second-hand shop in Gdańsk in creating a collection of hand-painted clothes.