Info

Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk
Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia
III Intermedia studio
Supervisor: PhD Honorata Martin

A multi-element work consisting of a two-channel video depicting the artist’s “Julka self-presentation.” Regardless of voices of criticism, she freely visualizes, in a typical for the internet aesthetic “glitchy” way, the narration led by the “important men from the world of politics and journalism,” who judge young politically engaged girls in unflattering words.

Above all, it tells the story of women’s problems from the young generation perspective, who spend a large part of their lives in the internet. A growing social divide between men and women, who have diverged in their vision of the world and understanding of politics, contributed to the emergence of the term “Julka.” She’s a candidate for the youth word of the year, denoting a leftist/progressive/liberal-leftist girl in her teenage and college years, involved in political issues. The term gained popularity in the wave of women’s strike protests and essentially made substantive discussion on the internet impossible, and exposed many girls advocating for equality and freedom to harassment or even private threats.

In the course of the project many side materials were created and shared on the Facebook group, including “Julka’s manifesto” which was read out and streamed during the performance. All the elements could be commented live in a post created especially for the occasion. Currently, the group also includes screenshots taken after the publication of her work, trying to find out to what extent the figure of “Julka” was a real character, and to what extent it was trolling. On the group, which refers in its name to popular “jebawka”, you can find almost 200 comments, in which men explain the world to the author and swallow her dumps like pelicans, you can observe their frustration when some random girl on the internet expresses her opinions on feminism, LGBT people or sex work, and how easily it is picked up by the crowd. In the process, the artist was driven by the idea of finding new means of expressing her actual views, in a way that she could enjoy “trolling” and not be stifled.

Emilia Rodziewicz‘s creative work oscillates mainly around netart and short film forms. She is interested in participatory possibilities of internet art, deconstruction of an image, politics, memes, dynamic montages and drawing inspiration from the press. Besides, she is relaxed by illustration, especially those focused on the physicality – by chiseling she takes a break from editing and annoying boys in suits. In her short artistic career she has had several exhibitions and open calli, showing among others works about Julka, a video about her endometriosis, a video performance in which she larps Rising Sun Mao and one where she impersonates every traitor of Poland in her family. From time to time, she also shows her pictures of naked people painted with watercolor. She is an artist, student and graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia.