The exhibition of male and female students of the 2nd Studio of the Basics of Photography, ASP Warsaw, Faculty of Graphic Arts, entitled “Dawno i nieprawda” (Once Upon a Time and Not True), presented works resulting from the transformation of a spectrum of experiences, both beautiful and painful, which, as they passed, became fleeting memories or stayed relatively longer. The exhibition, running from 28 June to 9 July 2023, invited reflection on the irreversibility of time and fading into oblivion, telling a story of deteriorating moments metaphorised by a piece of wallpaper peeling off the wall or the continuous transformations of nature in the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost:

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

(Robert Frost, 1923)

Exhibiting: Aleksandra Wróbel / Bożena Niebój / Cyprian Szablak / Emil Laska / Kasia Phan / Laura Pietras / Maja Rogocka / Mikołaj Radecki / Mikołaj Soroczyński / Wiktoria Nowak / Wiktoria Solak / Zuza Radzikowska. Guest participation of 1st year Students of the 2nd Studio of the Basics of Photography at the ASP in Warsaw, Graphic Arts

Promotion: Cyprian Szablak

Supervision: Bożena Niebój

The exhibition ISSHIN presented works by Masafumi Koshio (JPN) and Olgierd Zbychorski (PL) from 21 to 26 June 2023. The works were created as a result of an intercontinental creative dialogue connecting abstraction with a concrete vision. On display were miniature Instax instant photographs, which were experiments with the medium and the light-sensitive emulsion, enriched with calligraphy. The effects resulted from intentional and uncontrolled actions, such as exposing the film to full sun or keeping it in the dark. The second part of the exhibition consisted of minimalist, abstract graphic forms obtained using the technique of motusgraphy – scanning graphic elements in motion. The works, in various configurations (single pieces, diptychs, triptychs, etc.), combined gesture and sign, line and point, in a digitally modified painterly gesture and a contemplative interpretation by a master of calligraphy.

Artists

Masafumi Koshio (JPN)

Hailing from and living in Shizuoka. Master and leader of a calligraphy school. Former president of the international association for the promotion of calligraphy Ichijikai. Performer of large-format calligraphy created in collaboration with musicians and dancers. He was also a landscape designer – Japanese gardens. He began learning calligraphy at the age of seven. From an early age, he sought to understand the foundations of Japanese arts: the "way" and the beauty of balance and disproportion. In 2021, he established the Ichijikai association, which also operates in Europe. "What will you experience in calligraphy? What will you do with calligraphy?" – Ichijukai primarily promoted calligraphy worldwide. An important stage in his creative journey was meeting Agnieszka Yokoe – a translator and promoter of Japanese culture in Poland, and Olgierd Zbychorski, with whom collaboration helped him find his new, European "way". In recent years, his works have been presented at exhibitions in Japan, China, Mongolia, as well as in Poland and Lithuania.

Olgierd Zbychorski (PL)

Originally from Sopot, living in Warsaw, a graduate of the University of Gdańsk. Author of articles on visual identity, applied graphics and color perception. Curator of modern painting exhibitions. Professionally associated with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute for several years. Passionate about graphic design, photography, and author of a weekly radio show presenting broadly understood electronic music and world music.

I would like to talk about attempts to emerge from helplessness – attempts at contact with the earth, searching for a stable point where my life could fit more harmoniously into life on earth, where art and action could support each other.

Bukiet niezapominajek (Bouquet of Forget-Me-Nots). Collection of works from 19XX-2023

*"Every human being has had or will have the opportunity to receive a bouquet
of forget-me-nots as an expression of gratitude or affection. And it is known that
forget-me-nots wither the fastest.(...)" **

Pelka Atys

Janek Cieślak

Mikołaj Chylak

Rafał Dominik

ehh hahah

Maciek Januszewski

Zuzia Kiksa

Piotr Kopik

Natan Kryszk

Paulina Mirowska

Karo Nowak

Jędrek Owsiński

Anna Rutkowska

Władysław Skoczylas

Łukasz Zbroja

Łukasz Zembaty

*excerpt from Władysław Hasior's statement in the television programme “Sam na sam z Hasiorem”, 1974

Our reality operates in the future anterior tense (future anterior tense). We live in the conviction that we have lost agency and our future is predetermined. This causes us to no longer care about attention and will, allowing ourselves to merely drift in the world envisaged for us.

An exhibition of 2nd and 3rd year students from the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

The prints were created by us in spring 2022, in the shadow of the war in Ukraine and the accompanying anxieties. A longing for childhood and carelessness is visible in our works. We search for respite in creation and a synthesis of our own feelings.

A knowledge base about what each of us should know, which for some reason remains a taboo subject.

The source of art is commitment. Commitment allows one to create form and give an expression that will fascinate and move people.

How would plants live in the times of affluenza? Would their endurance, even that of succulents that store water within themselves and are equipped with spines, allow them to adapt to new conditions in which excess, overconsumption and global overproduction cause their natural environment to be deformed and destroyed? How would people live interacting only with non-physical substitutes for plants that would disappear as a result of systemic ecocide?

Protective armour, thorns, hooks, filters, poisons. The constant upgrading of plants' equipment in the struggle for survival gives humans an astonishing example of disobedience, stubbornness and ingenuity.