NEW PERFORMANCE TURKU BIENNALE: Joanna Rajkowska – I, Earth. In collaboration: Andrew Dixon, Aleksandra Kozioł, Scott Hawkins (Mutant Goat) and Antti Tolvi

I, Earth

The origin of the performance I, Earth is a deep concern about the destruction of our planet’s ecosystems. It is more than just concern – it is irritation, rage and despair. Knowledge, competence and resulting activist efforts do not give us much sense of real change. We feel powerless and inert. The accumulation of bad energy often produces aggression and self-aggression. Rajkowska’s performance proposes a rather different approach to this energy – namely, instead of analysing or disabling it, it will rather incarnate it or personify it. Rajkowska will use techniques that she has developed through 30 years of their work, and which originated in the Eastern Orthodox relation to the image.

”For the performance, I will propose an articulation that abandons the position of “I” and assumes the position of primaeval matter. This abandonment of the self will allow for a fundamentally different emotional structure. Participants will become mediators and transmitters of the earth.”
Joanna Rajkowska

Joanna Rajkowska (b. 1968, Poland) is a versatile artist best known for her work in public space. The outcomes of her works range from urban axes and architectural projects, through geological fantasies, excavation sites to underwater sculptures. Both alongside and separately, she produces films, photographs and models.

To construct sites, installations and ephemeral actions, she uses elements as diverse as plants, buildings, found objects, water, smoke or sound. De-familiarizing, de-humanizing and relating are her operating devices. She is interested in the limitations and the limiting of human activities, multiplicity of agencies and human and non-human relations.

Most of her works happen, live and age in public space. Thus, her practice embraces all the entities involved as well as their relations, including organic and inorganic beings. With a strong conviction that we, as humans, have failed to produce a viable, sustainable culture, she often confronts historical and sociopolitical contexts with the lives of species other than human.

The work is supported by Turku2029 Foundation.