Project Room 2021/2022 – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

Exhibitions of work by Maria Elena Bonet, Antonina Konopelska, Paweł Łubkowski, Malwina Migacz, the Young Talented Sexy collective, and Maciej Rauch were presented at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art as part of the 2021/2022 Project Room series.

This is the tenth edition of the programme aimed at young artists, who are given the chance to organize an individual exhibition at one of the most important contemporary art institutions in Poland.

The artists were selected from among 217 applicants who responded to the open call. The selection was made by a jury composed of: Krystyna Różańska-Gorgolewska, curator at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (jury chair); Rafał Łubowski, professor at the University of Arts in Poznań; Grzegorz Wnęk, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakòw; Stanisław Brach, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

The series was inaugurated on 7 October 2021 by the exhibition of work by Maciej Rauch, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk (2012). He is a painter, graphic designer, author of installations, animations, music videos and experimental music. He works in the field of magic realism presenting real characters within fairy-tale, mythical, and fantastical worlds, often using pop culture and music video references. To date, Rauch has already had a number of solo and group exhibitions.

• Young Talented Sexy [Młodzi Zdolni Seksowni] is a student art collective established at the start of 2018 in Poznań. It is a group of young artists working in a gallery they called Piec and characterized by independence, individuality and artistic freedom. The members share common passions and an inclination to convey something important. It includes:
  • Allen Mack — born in Poznań in 2001. From 2020, a student of painting at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and the Faculty of Painting and Drawing at the University of Arts in Poznań. His takes his inspirations from reality — situations that he’d experienced himself.
  • Anna Kossyk — born in Zabrze in 1998. From 2018, a student of Scenography and Fashion Design at the Faculty of Interior Architecture and Scenography at the University of Arts in Poznań. She believes that the language of creative intuition consists in the image, i.e., the sum of images, fragments, and relationships between them. 
  • Magda Sokołowska — born in Poznań in 1996. From 2017, a student of painting at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. In her work, jokes, the idea of existence being an illusion, and the perfection of form are of great importance.
  • Amadeusz Robaszkiewicz — born in Poznań in 1995. From 2016, a painting student at the Faculty of Drawing and Painting of the University of Arts in Poznań, where in 2019 he obtained a bachelor’s degree in painting. He focuses on installations and painting and is fascinated by the architecture of tenement houses in Poznań.
  • Julia Olszewska — born in Poznań in 2001. From 2020, a student of graphic design at the Faculty of Graphics and Visual Communication at the University of Arts in Poznań. She draws inspiration from current events, celebrities, film, and photography.
• Maria Elena Bonet was born in Minsk, Belarus and graduated from the Belarusian State Academy of Art in 2009. Since 2021, she is based in Poland where she received a Gaude Polonia scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland (2021). For over a decade, Maria has been focusing on black and white film photography and used alternative photographic methods such as gum bichromate, tintype, cyanotype, and classical gelatine-silver photography.
  • Paweł Łubkowski is a painter, photographer, author of objects and installations. He studied painting in the Department of the Arts of the Institute of Visual Arts of the University of Zielona Góra (2004–2009) and Digital Image Creative Processing at the Pedagogical University in Cracow (2013–2014).In his work, Łubkowski draws on his own memory and on post-memory. He searches for the traces we leave, which testify to our presence. These then become the subject of his works or their material. He combines the accompanying existential reflections with aesthetical considerations, producing etudes on life, transience, beauty, and art. Paweł Łubkowski has had nine solo shows and participated in several dozen group exhibitions. He was also listed in a ranking of 100 most interesting young Polish artists, compiled by the leading galleries. He currently lives in Cracow, but also retains a connection with the Lublin region, where he often produces his projects.

• Malwina Migacz graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. She lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her main area of research is the relationship between control and domination, on the one hand, and an unregulated state that finds its way through ruptures, on the other. In her works, Migacz searches for human circumstances and loci in the (political, cultural, social) systems that we build around ourselves and explores the domination that we seek to extend over our environment (man towards nature and the mental state). Migacz is an author of works that are often based on the phenomenon of dissociation, a mental state characterized by a tendency to ignore and violate social norms and the rights of other people. She works with diverse media such as textiles, cement, powdered metals, plaster, ash, video, 3D animation, painting, or photography. She has also been active in the fields of performance art and sound art which often combine with her installations, producing an effect of dissonance, misunderstanding, and lack of logic which then becomes a state of derealization. As can be seen in her earlier exhibitions, she has often worked with the motif of the horse. The horse is a symbol of nature, wildness, and freedom that humanity has always sought to suppress and tame. The reins, the curb bit, and the whip are means of control. Instruments made of leather and iron. Mankind has to tame and control nature in order to get closer to it. Migacz became interested in the relationship between these forces. In domination we can feel freedom, in a desire to tame we sense wildness.

  • Antonina Konopelska is a graduate of prof. Grzegorz Kowalski’s Audiovisual Space Studio Kowalnia at Media Art Faculty at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (MA 2016, BA 2014) and Modern Language Studies at the University of Warsaw (Iberian and Ibero-American Studies, BA 2014). She defended her doctoral dissertation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice under the supervision of prof. Ewa Zawadzka and prof. Judyta Bernaś (2022). She presented her works during numerous solo shows (Chór / The Choir, Vienna Woods Gallery, Los Angeles, 2020; Libertango, TRAFO, Szczecin, 2018; The Wax of Poland 3.1, Promocyjna Gallery, Warsaw, 2018, among others) and group exhibitions (Out of Poland, Arena 1 Gallery, Santa Monica Art Studios, 2019; A Process 2.0, Krakow Photomonth, 2016; Readings, Salon Akademii, Warsaw, 2015; Masquerade, CFF The Centre for Photography, Stockholm, 2012, among others). Recipient of Adam Mickiewicz Institute Polish Culture Abroad scholarship (2021, 2020, 2018), scholarship of ZAIKS – Polish Society of Authors and Composers (2021-2013), finalist of INOUT Festival (2019) and DEBUTS! program (2015), Ministry of Foreign Affairs Artistic Award of 2014, The Ministry of Science and Higher Education Scholarship for outstanding artistic achievements (2013). Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw.

• Following the end of all exhibitions, the jury will select the most interesting show, the author of which will receive an additional net award of PLN 20,000. The audience will also choose their favourite exhibition, the author of which will also receive PLN 20,000 net.