Forest Desires | HOS gallery

FOREST DESIRES

Aleksandra Liput, Manuela Mehrwald, Antonina Nowacka, Nina Paszkowski

18 Nov. - 14 Jan., 2023

FOREST DESIRES is dedicated to the pains and temptations of the forest. To human longings and fears that lie hidden in the depths of the forest and become visible in human exploitation and destruction.

The four artists Aleksandra Liput, Antonina Nowacka, Nina Paszkowski and Manuela Mehrwald conceive the exhibition FOREST DESIRE from an ecofeminist, mystical-experimental and socially critical perspective. The forest becomes a metaphorical site of negotiation for their artistic debate, which they understand as mystified, alive and threatening. For them, the forest reveals decentralised perspectives and entangled complexities, both human and non-human.

Although the human position within the forest cannot be fully determined, there seems to be a consensus in human perception that the charms of the forest make the human being sensitive. The artists explore their thoughts and feelings about the desire of the forest as well as the relational dynamics therein from their respective artistic media and develop individual approaches that inseparably overlap. Be it in painterly disruptions (Nina Paszkowski), gentle reification (Aleksandra Liput), psychedelic sound art (Antonina Nowacka) or fairytale-like words (Manuela Mehrwald).

Thus, the human senses become stimulated on many levels in this exhibition, continually asking: What can we learn from the forest for our togetherness? How do we meet ourselves and the forest? And ultimately, how can we desire without destroying? The forest invites us to enter, the artistic approaches to communicate. Though accompanied by the four artists, we must find the way out on our own.

fairy tale "Illa and the Crooked Tree" by Manuela Mehrwald available here

text by: Manuela Mehrwald

curator: Katarzyna Piskorz

Aleksandra Liput (b. 1989, Krosno)

She is a visual artist working with ceramics, soft sculptures, objects and installations. In her work she tackles issues of anxiety, the inheritance of trauma, spirituality in the broadest sense and magical objects. She is interested in concepts related to myth and utopia. Assistant and PhD student at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Co-founder of the curatorial duo DZIDY. Her works have been presented at, among others, the Labirynt Gallery in Lublin, the Arsenal Gallery in Poznań, the Foksal Gallery Foundation in Warsaw, the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko. Finalist of Coming Out - Best Diplomas of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2017).

Antonina Nowacka (b. 1992)

She is vocalist, composer, sound artist interested in the nature of the sound, in particular its influence on the nervous system, as well as in the methods that music can use to bring the performer and the audience into a certain state of mind. She uses the voice as the most organic synthesizer and the basic creation tool, which includes: extensive vocal techniques, significant influence of traditional folk and eastern cultures, spatial resonance and various forms of sound processing and synthesis, creating minimalist, imaginative landscapes. She studied traditional Indonesian music and classical Hindustani vocals under the supervision of the master of the Gwalior style - Shashwati Mandal.

Solo albums: 2020 Lamunan (Mondoj); 2021 Vocal Sketches from Oaxaca (TakuRoku)

Nina Paszkowski (b. 1991, Muri, Switzerland)

She studied painting at Camberwell College of the Arts in London and at Bellas Artes Complutense in Madrid. Her work is centred around relationships of desire, power and interdependence. With a methodological focus on feminist revisionist mythology, her work investigates eroticism as a process for reviewing and rebuilding ideas of connectivity. Paszkowski’s work was shown at EFA Project Space New York (2022), Display Gallery Prague (2022), Galeria Monopol Warsaw (2022), Cracow Art Week (2022 and 2021), KunstWerk Köln (2021), Museo del Traje Madrid (2015), amongst others. This year she co-organized the project FLUID CIRCULATIONS (Hydrofeminist Explorations in Post-Industrial Landscapes) and was resident of the SMAA Art Residency program nestled in the Upper Engadin in Switzerland. In 2023, the artist will present her work at Kunstmuseum Celle and in a solo show at La Felce gallery in Cologne. She lives and works in Cologne.

Manuela Mehrwald (b. 1991)

She in an art researcher, who combines biology and culture in her reflections. Manuele Mehrwald works at the intersection of artistic-scientific theory and practice and experimental writing. She completed her MA studies with the thesis 'ZERO - DIS. Collectivity as a Curatorial Approach' at the University of Cologne in 2018. In parallel, she worked as an art history assistant with the artist Heinz Mack. In 2019, in collaboration with curator Lisa Long, she deepened her research in critical curatorial studies at the JULIA STOSCHEK COLLECTION in Düsseldorf/Berlin, focusing on feminist theories and collectivity from a process-oriented and transdisciplinary perspective. She recently started her doctoral studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Birgit Mersmann. Her current research focuses on relationships in curatorial constellations. Since 2015, Mehrwald has been working as an initiator and co-creator on various art mediating projects in both curatorial and artistic fields in Off Space spaces and institutions in both Germany and Poland min. Museum Ludwig, Cologne; KiT-Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf; Nationalgalerie Zachęta, Warsaw; reinraum e.V., Cologne; Theater Studio Naxos; Frankfurt; Japanisches Kulturinstitut, Cologne. Since the summer semester 2022, she also teaches art and the latest art trends at the University of Essen-Duisburg.