A game with the shifting mirrors - part three. Bogna Burska (assistance M. Januszaniec) / 12.09.08, 7 pm


Friday, 12 September, at 7 pm
The exhibition is open until 3 November, 2008.

“A game with the shifting mirrors – part three” is the next episode of Bogna Burska’s project, being the first individual presentation of the artist’s work in Gdańsk.

The exhibition presented in the Wyspa Institute of Art comprises the film series “a game with the shifting mirrors” and the photographic series “Recollections”. The latest films, “Shooting Star” and “Found Footage” have been especially prepared by the artist for the purpose of the show in Gdańsk. Burska completed her video works using the method of found footage, consisting in processing and combining fragments of the already existing works. The photographs from the series “Recollections”, however, are a collection of stills from feature films, in which blood was used as a kind of visual substance; a number of them resembles still lifes or other stylised compositions. Simultaneously, they refer to the topic of cliches and reproduced images, as it appears in the video works. The project broaches a couple of aspects of the contemporary collective imagination created by the cinema – its narrations which constantly write and reshape – “overwrite” themselves.

“A game with the shifting mirrors” relates with its title and its construction to the literary oeuvre of Jorge Luis Borges.

He is author of a review of the non-existing book “The Conversation with the Man Called Al-Mu’tasim”, subtitled “A Game with the Shifting Mirrors”, the latter employed by Burska. Like Borges, the artist constructs new worlds in her films, which she later manipulates, arranging them into labirynths of time, space and logic. “The game with mirrors” begins. In this game, scenes known from niche films and Hollywood productions are combined. The narration is built of the already existing motifs and set into a new context. It shows how the once created and performed scenes or gestures are reused or reproduced. Owing to such combination, Burska examines relations between the language of the film, its image and the influence on the viewer’s imagination.

The film “Shooting Star” tells the story about the construction of the figure of the contemporary hero, whose image existing in the popular consciousness is placed into diverse film and social narrations. “Found Footage” is about images and meanings smuggled into the viewer’s consciousness without their knowledge and about the unexpected tangling of fiction and reality.

After Borges, we wish that the viewer toured our exhibition as someone who plays with the shift of images and shapes in a kaleidoscope.

The series “a game with the shifting mirrors” consists of: 

Part One:
“One More”, “A Very Bad Dream of Count of Monte Cristo”, “Piece of Jade”, “Found Footage”.
Part Two:
“A Heart so White”, “God is Vain”, “Wind”.
Part Three:
“Shooting Star”.

The exhibition is co-funded by the Patronage of the City of Gdańsk.
The project “Shooting star” is supported by Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.


Patroni medialni/Media patrons
culture.pl, independent, trojmiasto.pl, tv eia, bęc zmiana

Sponsorzy/Sponsors
Baltic Property Trust, benq, drukarnia b3 project, eko-tech .
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