The Municipal Gallery bwa in Bydgoszcz is hosting the artist Magdalena Ciemierkiewicz for three weeks as part of our Artistic Residency Programme. We start with Artist Talk on November 15th at 6 pm at 3rd Gdańska Street, so we could meet the artist and get closer to her work and her intentions to talk to the city.
The starting point of Ciemierkiewicz’s activities in Bydgoszcz is a walk in Fordon. The artist wanders through the district in search of micro-histories, especially those related to the fate of women and the historical multiculturalism of Bydgoszcz.
Until 1983, Fordon was home to a notoriously rigorous women’s prison, where Polish and Jewish women who were later transported to the Auschwitz and Ravensbrück camps were held during the Second World War. The artist looks at their fate with sensitivity and attention, traces of which she seeks in archival documents and photographs. Before the war, this district was home to the largest number of Bydgoszcz’s Jews, whose presence is still remembered by the local architecture and oral histories. In the northern part of the district is the Valley of Death, the execution site of several thousand residents. When analysing local memory, the artist is guided by her subjective choice of tropes. By means of an archival search, a walk, a conversation with local residents, and artistic activities, she uses the fragments she finds to compose her own story about Fordon from the perspective of a first-time visitor. Through the use of light and voice, she reaches forgotten stories that need a new reading. The artist’s work will be summarised in an exhibition open from 3 December 2024.
Magdalena Ciemierkiewicz born in 1992 in Rzeszów. Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2016) and History of Modern Art at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (2020). She uses a variety of media, including painting, printmaking, collage, photography and fabric. Central to her work is the cultural experience of the borderlands and a personal perspective. She touches on themes such as multidimensional identity, women’s stories and the intermingling of cultures. She has presented her work at the 14th Manifesta Biennial, Kosovo, 2022; Biała Gallery, Lublin; Labirynt Gallery; HOS Gallery; DIM, Ukrainian House; Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles, KVOST, Berlin. She has participated in artist residencies in New York, Berlin, Krosno and Ostrava. Winner of the Claus Michaletz Preis 2024.