Models, maquettes, mock-ups, thumbnails – three-dimensional representations of reality are fascinating in their own right. They provoke our imagination, stir up our fantasies, and invite us to contemplate different fictitious worlds. As children, we play with dolls, toy cars, houses, as well as giant teddy bears; as adults, we admire models of cities in museums and enormous statues in public squares – states curator of the Fragments II section during the Prague Quadrennial 2023, Klára Zieglerová.
Reconstructing memories exhibited in the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute presents two of the twenty three works presented during the Prague Quadrennial 2023, giving the audience a fragmentary glimpse of the exhibition shown in Prague this July. It juxtaposes works by Augustė Kunevičiūtė and Ludomir Franczak touching on the theme of the past and memory, initiating an audiovisual dialogue between them.
Augustė Kunevičiūtė builds three rooms and tells three stories. Let’s travel back in time to 1985 Soviet apartment blocks in Lithuania. At the time, everything was standardized: every apartment looked the same and had the same furniture, and everyone dressed similarly. However, behind every door lived people with unique stories. Their lives were full of interesting, comical, and cinematic everyday experiences – writes the author. Her work is the result of conversations with people who lived in blocks of flats during the Soviet era, as well as the significant amount of research to recreate as faithfully as possible every smallest detail from the design of that period. Out of the dozens of stories collected, the author selected three, which she elaborated visually, aurally and directionally.
The Life and Death of Janina Węgrzynowska is a maquette used in Ludomir Franczak’s performance of the same name, and it shows a room with the heroine sitting on a characteristic chair from the communist period. The starting point this performance/performative installation is figure of an artist who dedicated her entire life to creative work and remained completely unknown to both the wider public and the artistic community. The basis for reconstructing the memory of her became the archive of works, objects and documents left by the artist. The model presented at the exhibition refers to the artist’s death.
Reconstructing memories
Augustė Kunevičiūtė – author
Nojus Drąsutis – photographer
Laurynas Kamarauskas – sound director
The Life and Death of Janina Węgrzynowska
Ludomir Franczak – author of the concept
Kamil Stańczak – maquette
Marcin Dymiter – sound
Krystyna Mogilnicka, Karolina Dziełak-Żakowska – curatorial concept
Tomasz Marzec – exhibition architecture
Anna Stefańska, Maciej Stefański – graphic design
Karolina Dziełak-Żakowska – production
The exhibition Reconstructing memories was realized by the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute as part of the activities around the Prague Quadriennale 2023.
The exhibition was co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
„Reconstructing Memories” is presented in the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute’s Gallery during the Institute’s working hours in the period: October 14, 2023 – December 13, 2023, admission is free.
