It depends...



‘It depends…’ is the tittle of an art-project prepared by Seline Baumgartner and to be shown at the Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk. Seline Baumgartner is a Swiss artist, interested in political and sociological changes and the concurrent relations between them.
Artist spent three months in WyspaAirPort (artist-in-residence programme in Wyspa Institute of art) exploring the city and its surrounds, and investigating its historic and socio-political changes.

‘It depends…’ is a resultant project shaped by this inquiry with specific focus on the conditions and interrelations reflected by the inhabitants living in the housing complex ‘wielka płyta’ at the turn of the 60 and 70-ties in Gdańsk.Crucial role in constructing the modernistic housing estate acted Le Corbusier, which claimed that ‘house is a machine to live’, and his Modulor (proportion based on human’s body) is an ideal measuremnt to design a habitable space.
Using ‘wielka płyta’, simple and cheep structural element, allowed to build many-storied blocks of flats in a fast way. Where on a relatively small space many families can live, and there is still much space for greens.

Baumgartner focused on representing the relations between inhabitants of a block of flat, theirs lonelyness feelings and big partnership. Theirs subjective relation to the architectural structure to flat and blok of flat. Or on theirs individual attachment to theirs private territory, which is a flat.
Title ‘It depends…’ shows the ambigous answers about the human’s condition and the way of living in a block of flats from ‘wielka płyta’.
Artist constructs an installation which acts as an open stage leading a viewer into blok of flats space. Inhabitants’ stories, feelings and voices are uncovered and the contrast between primary utopian architectural ideals and the factual conditions of living at ‘Wielka płyta’ are exposed.

The exhibition is in a cooperation with ProHelvetia.


Curator: Ola Grzonkowska.
Public relations: Martyna Groth


25 April 2008 - 15 June 2008
 

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