Fashion House Limanka
The Last Train to Warsaw
Fashion House Limanka presents its latest production, a film called The Last Train to Warsaw, inspired by the best traditions of Łódź’s film and textile industries.
Set in a post-apocalyptic scenery, the short film tells the story of tension-filled preparations for the trip of a lifetime. Tall expectations in a world of limited opportunities, bygone fame, and reawakened hopes become the driving forces for an art collective seeking access to the salons of the Warsaw art world and a way to achieve commercial success in a shower of social-media likes.
The film, Limanka’s latest production, is based on the experience of living in precarity and privation. An experience of living in a city of contrasts, a cradle of infanticidal women, a city housing Poland’s oldest collection of contemporary art. But the story can also be interpreted in more universal terms – as a fantasy about crossing the boundary between an imaginary centre and a colonized periphery. In the near future, Łódź becomes a land of suckers, losers, and lamers. Escape routes had been cut off before a group of influencers managed to flee. Four artists, convinced of their uniqueness and driven by memories of past fame, decide to take matters into their own hands. Will they win a ticket to the better world? Will the lobby of the new Łódź Fabryczna train station, empty since opening day, become a gateway to a global career?
The Last Train to Warsaw is the second Project Room project this year. Produced by U–jazdowski and presenting the work of young-generation Polish artists, all exhibitions are premieres and designed specifically for the space. Preceded by Marta Krześlak’s exhibition, the Fashion House Limanka presentation will be followed by premiere projects by Jan Moszumański-Kotwica, Wiktoria Walendzik, Horacy Muszyński, and Róża Duda and Michał Soja. An international jury will select the best projects and award two prizes: the 1st Prize of 20,000 zlotys and the 2nd Prize of 10,000 zlotys. The award-presenting ceremony will be held in January 2020.
Fashion House Limanka was a Łódź-based art collective started in 2017. It included: Tomasz Armada, Dominika Ciemięga, Sasa Lubińska, Kacper Szalecki, with guest appearances by friends. It operated out a former gynaecologist’s office where the collective’s members organised exhibitions, concerts, retreats, celebrations, produced music videos, cooked, slept, and cleaned after everyone else had left. During the opening of the exhibition at the Project Room in May 2019 at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, the collective’s members announced resignation from further group activity.
