Exhibition: Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw
20.07-26.08 2018
Curator: Przemek Sowiński
I remember my birth is the title of the exhibition by Weronika Gęsicka presented at the Project Room. It refers, among other things, to a common psychological phenomenon known as a false memory, where a person recalls something that did not happen. The claim in the title is obviously false – scientists have repeatedly shown that it is impossible to remember the moment of our birth.
'Memory is a subject that can be analyzed from many perspectives' – says Weronika Gęsicka.' It is not simply a record of what has happened, but rather the way we perceive the past. Constantly modified by various external events and our own feelings, it can easily be manipulated. Memory is like a flexible mass, prone to transformations, which bothers me deeply.The questions and doubts this raises are extremely important for me, both as an artist and as a human being.'
The artist’s latest project is a kind of case study of memories as elements that constitute our identity. The exhibition mainly consists of ordinary and domestic objects – mostly kitchen tools, which are actually only reminiscences; through modification and enlargement they become mock-ups of our deformed memory. Their affiliation with the world of the kitchen also evokes stereotypical social roles. 'This is my kingdom' – our mothers usually used to say about kitchens. Surrounded by objects,utensils and tools whose purpose only they knew, women seemed closed in the world imposed on them. This was the firmly established imagery of American advertising photography in the 1950s, from which Gęsicka drew heavily in her previous project, Traces.
In I remember my birth Gęsicka uses psychoanalysis, scientific theories and personal mythology, balancing between truth and falseness, seriousness and grotesque and irony, to reveal the moment of realizing the sources of her own personality. The main character of the exhibition, a little girl,decreases and increases in size just like Alice in Wonderland to change her view of the world and her place in it.
Przemek Sowiński
