SAD WON’T BUILD A BETTER WORLD | exhibition finissage

Exhibition

SAD WON’T BUILD A BETTER WORLD at the Academic Design Centre is a drag-queen exhibition by renowned visual artist Agata Zbylut, as well as an interactive performance and a workshop by young-generation artist and designer Paweł Kaźmierowski.

The exhibition directly references drag queen Kim Lee. Thus, the Academic Design Centre behind the event, an institution that merges art and design, implements interdisciplinary activities – including independent artists, also belonging to cultural minorities such as drag queens – and at the same time alludes to the history of female textile workers. In the so-called Scheibler empire – on whose grounds the ACD building is located today – provided not only hard labour but also social, medical and economic support, including housing, schools and kindergartens for children and young people. So some women in the late 19th century happened to have a choice. Those who chose to work were able to free themselves from objectification and their ascribed social roles in order to take up the struggle against intensifying class and identity differences. In this way, they became creators of their own microhistory, or rather herstory.

Author*: Agata Zbylut, Anna Bielawska, Piotr Michalski, Natalia Sara Skorupa, Kamil Winnicki
Visual identification: Beata Nikolajczyk-Miniak
Curator: Magdalena Komborska-Łączna

Exhibition date:
13.09 – 16.10.2024

Vernissage:
13th September, 18.00 – with guided tours, a performance by Ania Bielawska and an organ concert by Piotr Cholewa.

Finissage:
11th October, 18.00 – with guided tour, a meeting with the artist and performances by Paweł Kaźmierowski and Natalia Sara Skorupa. During the finale, we invite willing participants to record short statements about what drag is to them. This material will be used in further instalments of the project THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WARSAWIANS ARE.

Works included in the exhibition:

• Anna Bielawska, POLISH SUSHI, video performance work
• Piotr Michalski, BAJKA (in which I am the prince and my mother is the queen), digital photography series, 2021
• Natalia Sara Skorupa, PLAY WITH QUEER EROTICA
• Kamil Winnicki, ADAM AND ADAM, photographic series

Bio

Agata Zbylut (b. 1974) – Polish visual artist, academic and curator whose work focuses on feminist and existential issues as well as reflections on time and passing. She studied at the University of Zielona Góra, where she obtained her diploma in the Drawing and Intermedia Studio, and then obtained her doctorate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań and her habilitation at the State Higher School of Television and Theatre in Łódź. In her art, she often uses her own image to analyse social stereotypes about women. Zbylut was the curator of the Amfilada Gallery in Szczecin and has been president of the Zachęta Association for Contemporary Art since 2004, initiating such projects as the Young Art Festival ‘Przeciąg’ and Trafostacja Sztuki.

About the project

Agata Zbylut, NAJPIĘKNIEJSZE WARSZAWIANKI TO PRZYJEZDNE. ŁÓDŹ 2024, a research-like project, being a kind of local diagnosis of Łódź. The title comes from a song by Irena Santor, and I’ve heard it many times from Charlotte’s Drag Queer. I don’t take it literally. Rather, for me, it is a symbol of the migration of people from smaller towns to larger ones. And while this migration may simply be associated with increased chances of success in life, for those who escape cis norms, it is the only chance to be fully themselves, to live among other rainbow people, not to hide with their uniqueness.

The educational programme of artist Agata Zbylut’s project, entitled SAD WON’T BUILD A BETTER WORLD, includes two workshops and an interactive performance by Paweł Kaźmierowski, an artist and designer of the young generation. The theme of the performative action will be broadly defined fashion in the context of gender deconstruction. Kaźmierowski’s projects oscillate around the feminisation of male attributes. The elements of his fashion silhouettes are directly related to the body. The artist talks about the extent to which our bodies can be controlled and disciplined. Paul’s performance will present fashion silhouettes in the form of an out-of-the-box interactive show that aims to make the audience aware of how damaging stereotypical thinking about gender is. The theme of the workshop, however, will be the work of the female factory workers of Łódź, the textile workers. The result will be designs for headscarves associated with textile workers, with embroidered words with feminist overtones.

Accompanying events

10th October 13.00 – 15.30, 16.00 – 18.30 Paweł Kaźmierowski workshop

Organisers:
Academic Design Center, Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, Stowarzyszenie Pola Designu (Design Fields)

Media partners:
SZUM magazine, Trójka – Program Trzeci Polskiego Radia, Presto magazine

Agata Zbylut’s exhibition SAD WON’T BUILD A BETTER WORLD is part of the ‘Women’s work never ends’ project, co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Fund for the Promotion of Culture – a state earmarked fund.