25.01.-09.02.2013
Plein-air Karweńskie Błota 2012 was a 5th edition of Grzegorz Stachańczyk’s original plein-air for students of the Conservation and Renovation Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. The idea behind annual plein-air in Karweńskie Błota is to define an identity of a place – a seaside village, which is usually associated with an anonymous retreat.
A rich past of the village, which is connected with 16th century dutch-german colonisation, is a chapter that is closed with a turning point of the II World War. Nevertheless, the residents have an awareness of the past and they still feel as its heirs. A relationship between present residents of the village and their place of living was a starting point to formulate an idea for all of the plain-airs in Karweńskie Błota.
The first proposition was to portray the residents. Portraits of the fishermen and their families made in the begining of the last century was an inspiration. This theme was being realized during the last three seasons of the plain-airs and the accomplished portraits were donated to the Association for Karweńskie Błota.
Nowadays there is a befriended group of the residents that accompanies the students and their activities. They participated significantly in a next project realized during the plein-air in 2012. It was an attempt to reveal the “magical” spaces – special inches of the village chosen by the residents that show a different side of the place than the one that exists in the consciousness of the tourists. This action became a reason to organise a “barter”. Places chosen by the residents were marked in the field and the “portraits of the places” made by the students became a subject of an exchange between them and the residents for things that they were able to produce by hand.
The recent plein-air was organised in a different way – it involved a guest, Małgorzata Winter, an art historian and critic. Because of that students had an opportunity to meet someone who takes an active part in an artistic life and influencing the field of the contemporary art. The programme prepared by Małgorzata Winter, such as movie projections and lectures about for example using wool in contemporary art, was a reason to carry out an “ecological graffiti” in the field.
At the exhibition in Profile Foundation is displayed a video documentation from the last plein-airs, the photographies of the recent plein-air and the “ecological graffiti”, showing the activities of the students in Karweńskie Błota in 2012.
