In Conversation: Paulina Korobkiewicz, Natalia Domagala
19th March 2020, 18.00 GMT
Join us for a live stream of an evening talk exploring the sociohistorical context of my solo exhibition - Udarny trud at Centrala.
Wall Unit - Open Eye Gallery /
Digital Exhibition for Open Source #016
1 - 31 March 2020
IG Residency: 9 - 14 March
OPEN EYE GALLERY
19 MANN ISLAND
LIVERPOOL WATERFRONT
LIVERPOOL
L3 1BP
Udarny Trud - Artist talk /
In converstation: Paulina Korobkiewicz, Natalia Domagala
Paulina Korobkiewicz, a photographer and visual artist whose solo show was inspired by archival material found in an abandoned textile factory in Alytus, and Natalia Domagala, an author of the essays accompanying the show, will be discussing the socialist cult of work, shifting attitudes to labour and how growing up surrounded by post-socialist aesthetics shaped their perception of the world.
Thursday, 19th March, 6 pm
Free entry
Centrala, Unit 4, Minerva Works, 158 Fazeley Street, B5 5RT Birmingham
Spectrum Photographic Instagram Takeover /
I am taking over Spectrum Photographic Instagram from 10 until 14 February.
@spectrumlab, @pakropka #udarnytrud #spectrumlab #centrala
Udarny Trud - Solo Show @ Centrala /
8 February – 27 March 2020
Private View: 7 February, 6pm – 9pm
Udarny trud is a solo show of a London-based Polish photographer Paulina Korobkiewicz. The exhibition consists of archival material that Korobkiewicz found in an abandoned textile factory in Alytus (Lithuania) with contemporary photos she took of the building and its interiors.
Born and raised in a borderland town in Eastern Poland near Lithuania, Korobkiewicz came across the factory when researching a project on aesthetics of post-socialist spaces in the summer of 2018. Upon entering the building, she discovered a wealth of neglected artefacts, textile samples, and personal photographs of the factory staff.
Alytaus Medvilnes Kombinatas was one of the largest textile companies in Lithuania and the Baltic States, responsible for the whole cycle of cotton manufacturing. Founded in 1969, the company went bankrupt in 2007, with the rising costs of production in Lithuania and the possibility of outsourcing labour from Asia cited as some of the reasons for its closure. At its peak, the enterprise employed approximately 6,000 people from all over Lithuania and it was crucial for the city’s industry.
Today, a dilapidated building and its monumental structure, cracked windows, and torn curtains represent the material remnants of the past. Concrete crumbling from the walls, abandoned rooms and broken furniture covered with layers of dust tell a powerful story of the rise and fall of a political system where labour was perceived as a right and a sacred duty.
Through juxtaposing the past and present of the textile enterprise set up during the socialist reign in Lithuania, Korobkiewicz poses questions about the meaning of labour in the previous and current political systems and explores social interactions shaping lives on the factory floor. She critically examines the cult of productivity and the role of the factory as a site of production and consumption through the archival photos that present the factory as a social centre and cultural platform of working-class communities.
Deriving from the Russian ‘уда́рник’, the title of the exhibition refers to super-productive, enthusiastic labour that has been the backbone of the socialist conceptualisation of productivity. ‘Udarnik’ was a highly efficient worker exceeding the norm of required labour. Breaking records of productivity gained publicity and became a twofold mechanism to encourage other workers to increase their efficiency, and to create everyday heroes, raising the status of the best-performing labourers, with their photos honorarily displayed in factory halls and chronicles.
The exhibition is accompanied by short essays by Natalia Domagala, a Polish- born, London-based writer and researcher.
Centrala is a multifunctional art space in Birmingham run by the Polish Expats Association, a non-profit organisation presenting art from Central and Eastern Europe and the UK.
Centrala, Unit 4 Minerva Works 158 Fazeley Street, Birmingham, B5 5RT
Opening Times: Wed - Sat, 12 - 8 pm
Free entry
Printed by Spectrum Photographic
/
Exhibition Open: 8.02 - 27.03, Wed - Sun, 12 - 8 pm
Centrala, Unit 4, Minerva Works, 158 Fazeley Street
Birmingham, United Kingdom
Image courtesy: Centrala
Artist Talk: The Ambiguity of Aesthetic Choices /
Join me for my talk at the London Institute of Photography on Friday, 4th October at 7pm. I will be speaking about my practice and showing selected photographs from recent projects. Tickets are £3, book your place here.
4th October 2019, 7 – 9pm
£3 (free for our PPC students)
London Institute of Photography
Old Truman Brewery
91 Brick Lane
London, E1 6QL
Photobook.Storytelling Exhibition /
24 May - 14 June 2019
The show is a part of the series that focuses on various aspects of the photobook. A carefully designed exhibition presents the most interesting samples of the photobooks from the Visegrad region, that have been made out of the need to convey, usually a personal, story. Most of the presented works are either self-published or published in small editions, including hand-made or low-cost printed zine publications.
Presented artists
Tabori Andras, Ewa Behrens, Eva Benkova, Stanislav Briza, Radek Brousil, Jan Brykczynski, Magda Buczek, Kateřina Držková, Peter Fabo, Viola Fátyol, Lucia Gamanová, Aurélia Garová, Agnieszka Gotowała, Anna Hornik, Tomoya Imamura, Zuzana Ivašková, Tereza Kabůrková, Ines Karčáková, Joanna Margaret Kischka , Deana Kolencikova, Jan Kolský , Viktor Kopasz, Paulina Korobkiewicz, Andrea Kurjakova, Alicja Łabądź, Katarzyna Ewa Legendź , Tomasz Liboska, Michal Loba, Maciej Moskwa , Boris Németh, Anna Orłowska, Krzysiek Orłowski, Ivana Paleckova, Marcin Plonka, Igor Pisuk, Piotr Pytel, Krzysztof Racoń, Kaja Rejczel Rata, Anka Sielska, Jakub Stanek, Juraj Starovecký, Dorota Stolarska, Eva Szombat, Budha Tamás, Jiri Thyn, Balázs Varju Tóth, Ondrej Urban, Imrich Veber, Doroteya Veykon , Ján Viazanička, Lukasz Wierzbowski , Karolina Wojtas, Adrian Wykrota, Ficsór Zsolt, Kasia Zolich, KWAS Karolina Wojtas, Agnieszka Sejud)
Image courtesy Fresh From Poland
Hybrid Prophecy Panel Discussion /
I will be speaking with Polish artist Kle Mens and curators Elaine Tam and Ryan Lanji at REJEKT Gallery. We'll be discussing Kle Mens's exhibition, her work and its themes.
Saturday, 15 June at 3 pm
82a Commercial Street, London E1 6LY3
In her first UK solo show, Kle Mens makes a brave incantation, summoning both religious martyrs and mythological hybrids to evoke the formidable force of female transformation, which underlies all her work. In a relational gesture of self- sacrifice, paint becomes embodied flesh, a profound moment of ekstasis propelling her into the temporality of long- standing religious order, a remark upon the continued urgency of feminist concerns. With similar spirit, she investigates the unusual, always-timeliness of the apocalypse — the recurring crisis of individual, collective and planetary future that haunts existence. Kle Mens presents us with this provocation: a Hybrid Prophecy that sees her assuming new bodies and fictions, while persisting with the religious iconography that she is passionately indebted to. With this, Kle Mens continues her elegant foray into mythic territories, their power and their promise.
Paperlust Photobook Fest /
Perspectives selected for Photobook. Storytelling exhibition, as a part of the first edition of Paperlust Photobook Fest, created by Fresh From Poland & Paper Beats Rock.
Book as a fulfilment of a dream about the narrative.
The show is a part of the series that focuses on various aspects of the photobook. A carefully designed exhibition presents the most interesting samples of the photobooks from the Visegrad region, that have been made out of the need to convey, usually a personal, story. Most of the presented works are either self-published or published in small editions, including hand-made or low-cost printed zine publications.
A book, as depicted in the show, becomes the means for communicating one’s personal experience, a cultural experience and the same time becomes an instrument protecting such experience from oblivion. The leitmotiv of a narration underlines the role of the recipient as an active participant/interpreter of the work of art.
Low-cost self-publishing is here a starting point for a polemic about the nature of the medium. The dissemination using the most economic and least demanding means gives it the power of an independent statement. The questions asked by the authors are an attempt to reflect on the phenomena of this type of publications on the Central European market, their role, ways of production and presentation, as well as expectations of the recipient. (Fresh From Poland)
Perspectives, 2017
24 May - 14 June 2019
Tue-Fri - 16:00 - 19:00
Sat-Sun - 12:00 - 16:00
Private View 25 May 2019 18:00
Fundacja Sztuki Nowej ZNACZY SIĘ
Kościuszki 37, 30-105 Kraków
Disco Polo - Between East and West Solo Show /
Solo exhibition at Hilger NEXT, Vienna, Austria
2 March - 27 April 2019
Private View: 1st March, 7pm
Thu-Sat, 12-6pm
Enquires: michaela.pedratscher@hilger.at
Absberggasse 27/2.3
1100 Wien
Prix Pictet 2018 HOPE /
I am honoured to announce I have been nominated for Prix Pictet 2018. The theme for the eighth cycle of the award is Hope.
Founded in 2008 by the Pictet Group, the Prix Pictet has become the world’s leading award for photography and sustainability. The award plays to a global audience of over 400 million.
The shortlist will be announced at Les Rencontres d’Arles in July 2019 and the winner at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in November 2019.
ARTIST TALK: Networking Event for CEE Creatives #3 /
I will be speaking about my work at the Networking Event for CEE Creatives and Central Bloc members #3 alongside Marine Tanguy and Maria Jastrzębska, organised by Centrala and Contemporary Lynx at Clapham Library. Join us on Tuesday, 22nd January!
From the Heart of Europe /
Galerie Ernst Hilger: From the Heart of Europe group show
Participating artists: Daniele Buetti, Maria Bussmann, Gunter Damisch, Oliver Dorfer, Alfred Hrdlicka, Paulina Korobkiewicz, Andreas Leikauf, Oswald Oberhuber, Hans Staudacher and Miha Strukelj.
PRIVATE VIEW
Wednesday 12 December, 6 – 9pm
TIMES AND DATES
7 - 22 December 2018
Tuesday – Saturday, 11 – 6pm
Free entry
Bermondsey Project Space
183-185 Bermondsey St, London SE1 3UW
VIA ARTS PRIZE 2018 /
I am thrilled to be joining the VIA Arts Prize judging panel this year, alongside with Irene Due, James Nicholls, Ting-Tong Chang, Kiki Mazzucchelli, Sumantro Ghose and Will Sorrell.
The VIA Arts Prize is London’s bespoke visual Ibero-American themed arts competition. It is organised by the Embassies of Latin America, Spain and Portugal and is hosted annually at the Embassy of Brazil in London, in its impressive Sala Brasil gallery.
The Prize is judged every year by an impressive Jury, comprising 6 high-profile personalities from the Arts world, who combine expertise from the areas of curating and practicing art, as well as academia and cultural journalism.
2018 Finalists Exhibition and Solo Show by Susan Phillips, 2017 winner of the Prize, will run from 14th December until 31st January.
Sala Brasil, Embassy of Brazil
14-16 Cockspur Street, London, SW1Y 5BL
Vienna Contemporary International Art Fair /
27 - 30 September 2018
Selected works from Disco Polo project along with new series WALL UNIT on display with Galerie Ernst Hilger (booth F08/G09) at this year's edition of the art fair.
Spectrum Photographic Instagram Takeover /
I am taking over Spectrum Photographic Instagram from 26 until 29 April: @spectrumlab, @pakropka
Post Soviet Visions: image and identity in the new Eastern Europe /
Disco Polo is on display at Calvert 22 at 'Post Soviet Visions: image and identity in the new Eastern Europe' group exhibition exploring new visual representations of lifestyle and landscape in Eastern Europe, until 15 April.
Featuring: Armen Parsadanov, David Meskhi, Dima Komarov, Genia Volkov, Grigor Devejiev, Hassan Kurbanbaev, Ieva Raudsepa, Jedrzej Franek, Masha Demianova, Michal Korta, Patrick Bienert and Max von Gumppenberg, Paulina Korobkiewicz, and Pavel Milyakov.
Second edition of Disco Polo photo-book is available from the Calvert 22 Bookshop
Calvert 22 Insta Story Takeover /
I was invited to take over Calvert 22 Foundation Instagram Stories. It can be followed 15 - 17 March, @calvert22foundation @pakropka
Post-Soviet Visions: image and identity in the new Eastern Europe /
Disco Polo exhibited as a part of Post-Soviet Visions: image and identity in the new Eastern Europe, exhibition curated by Ekow Eshun and Anastasiia Fedorova.
A group show of photography from the New East
Post-Soviet Visions: image and identity in the new Eastern Europe is a group show of photography exploring new visual representations of lifestyle and landscape in Eastern Europe. The exhibition gathers the work of a young generation of artists rising to prominence a quarter century after the end of Communism.
The photographers in Post-Soviet Visions come from Georgia, Germany, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Although the personal circumstances of the photographers born in Eastern Europe differ, they share a common past with either they, or their parents, growing up in countries that once existed under Communist rule. Today, they live within the globally connected modern world where borders of East and West are erased by new technologies. But the physical traces of the past can be seen in work such as Jedrzej Franek’s dizzying shots of Polish tower blocks and Michal Korta’s striking black and white images of Brutalist buildings in Skopje, Macedonia.
Following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and the end of its influence over its satellite states, the countries of the former Eastern Bloc have each forged their own paths. In artworks such as Hassan Kurbanbaev’s portraits of teenagers in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and David Meskhi’s photos of skater kids in Georgia, Post-Soviet Visionscaptures the new identities emerging across the region. Instead of old binaries of East vs West, socialist vs capitalist, their images capture a generation shaped by issues that are personal rather than the political; by questions of sexuality, gender and style.
Participating artists: Armen Parsadanov, David Meskhi, Dima Komarov, Genia Volkov, Grigor Devejiev, Hassan Kurbanbaev, Ieva Raudsepa, Jedrzej Franek, Masha Demianova, Michal Korta, Patrick Bienert and Max von Gumppenberg, Paulina Korobkiewicz, and Pavel Milyakov
