Braid, 2022, bast fibre, weeds, wildflowers,  20 x 150 cm

Cornu Copiae, 2022, 2-channel video installation with a narrated audio track, 20:34’

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We are entering a time of transition, the end of summer, when the earth and waters have heated up and so did we. Animals have given birth to young and are slowly preparing them for the hardships of winter.  The hatchlings have learned to fly, the migratory birds are preparing to fly away. The seeds have ripened and produced their fruit. We picked raspberries, blackberries and pears. The crops have been harvested. We are bidding farewell to a time of year when everything was filled with wild vitality. We are slowly getting used to shorter days and colder weather. Nature grows quiet. We are gently entering a new chapter.

Nature and the cosmos are dancing the same dance, which has no beginning and no end.

(...)

In her creative work, Anna Grochowska, explores the subject of myth. She seeks connections between human origin stories, searches for a meaning in our shared experience. In her own words: "My works are about the difference between claiming something and being part of it." Through her art, she reminds us, that we are not separate, independent entities, and it is only in connection with nature and with each other that we find harmony. 

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text by Eleonora Bojanowska, exhibition curator

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Ecclesiastes I

5 The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises. 6 The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to the north. It turns around continually as it goes, and the wind returns again to its courses. 7 All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again. 8 All things are full of weariness beyond uttering. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 That which has been is that which shall be, and that which has been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. 10 Is there a thing of which it may be said, “Behold,* this is new?” It has been long ago, in the ages which were before us. 11 There is no memory of the former; neither shall there be any memory of the latter that are to come, among those that shall come after.*

Braid

(...) Although I search the corners of my memory, I cannot recall when I learned to braid my hair. My hands find the strands by themselves and divide them into three sections. The outer  left - to the center, the outer right - to the center. The rhythm of hands creates the rhythm of the braid.

Is this activity so simple that I discarded the memory as unimportant? Did my hands know how to braid on their own before I was? Did it happen before I even had a memory?

 

*The World English Bible

**Selected text from the narration in artwork, translated