Iza Tarasewicz
Mining Conditions
Iza Tarasewicz’s Mining Conditions considers the geology, history, inanimate matter, and space surrounding the Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle. It also changes the function of the square before entering the Castle by changing its social conditions, material composition, and landscape structure. The artist's inspiration was Aldo Van Eyck’s 1966 Sonsbeek Pavilion in Arnhem, Netherlands, a temporary outdoor display structure for sculptures that directed the movements and experience of the public. Tarasewicz excavated the former foundations of the building, post-glacial stones located in the park, and paving stones occupying a significant part of this area, and collected them within a modular and mobile set of metal wagons borrowed from Van Eyck’s architectural plans. Functioning as both a three-dimensional abstract diagram and a material representation of the site, the project likewise refers to metaphorical and logical relationships proposed in Robert Smithson’s theory of Non-Sites. The mobile stage design offered for the public decomposes the existing "spatial order" of the institution, representing its material conditions while also indicating the possibility for reconfiguration and change.
