Jazdów City Garden – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

Can you imagine Warsaw without water? Rivers, swamps, ponds, wetlands, lakes, wells, fountains, networks of blue pipes winding beneath our feet?

This year's edition of Jazdów City Garden is dedicated to water in the urban environment.

As part of the project, this summer we will work with the area around the Ujazdowski Castle—focusing on water geography and geology. For us, water is multi-faceted: a force of nature, an urban liquid as well as a social metaphor—an element that connects, shapes and stimulates the urban web. As every year, the series of activities is interdisciplinary—on the border of art, architecture, botany and social practices. The park in front of the Castle will transforms into a water oasis for several summer months. Spilling out between the trees – Dystopia, a garden composition of black plants. It is a place of relaxation and refreshment on hot days, but also a warning. Dystopia is a disturbing vision of a planet that is dying, covered in plastic. In the water, as in the oceans, "bubbles" of artificial nature are drifting about. Two architects—Hélène Soulier and Ewa Rudnicka—designed an installation based on a puddle shaped by a big claw.

Near Dystopia, you will find a swamp hideout; here you can look at and touch natural sponges. In the Cistern, former underground water reservoir of the Ujazdowski Hospital, there is a Wetland Cluster. This is the work of Centrala, an architectural group, created by Małgorzata Kuciewicz and Simone De Iacobis. Last year, Centrala prepared the exhibition Amplifying Nature for the Polish pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Centrala also won a competition for a project to revitalize the Warszawianka Sports Centre. The work in the Cistern stems from a cooperation with the Wetlands Conservation Center (Centrum Ochrony Mokradeł).

Together with Centrala and the botanists, we will go for walks in Warsaw's wetlands. Within the frames of the public program of Jazdów City Garden and in cooperation with Warsaw's Waterworks (Wodociągi Warszawskie), educational workshops on hydrology are planned for children, adolescents as well as adults. We shall also go to the historical Warsaw Water Filters Station, which is not open to the public on a daily basis. And at the end of the summer, during a debate, we will talk about the city's blue map.

Jazdów City Garden is about recognizing the terrain and listening to its needs. This is an attempt to live in symbiosis with nature and our neighborhood. We want to care for the natural environment and heighten responsibility awareness for our environment, combining care for its natural as well as social dimension.