PortfolioCV 2024

Bio

Visual artist, performer, activist. Born in 1992 in Warsaw. Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Faculty of Media Arts; Master Degree at Mirosław Bałka’s Spatial Activities Studio and 3D and Virtual Occurences Studio 2 (2020). Working as an assistant at Basics of Staging Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

Artistic CV

email address:

mateusz8kowalczyk

@gmail.com

mobile:

+48 535 926 800

instagram:

@mateusz8kowalczyk

vimeo:

https://vimeo.com/user94885135

Artist statement

My artistic activity largely consists of collective activities, related to socially engaged art. I manifest my views by taking part in exhibitions and actions supporting pro-democracy and anti-fascist ideas. I move freely in different media depending on the topic. In recent years I have developed an artistic language using new technologies as Virtual Reality experiences, 360 video, photogrammetry as well as site specific installations and post-artistic activities.

Currently, I am focusing on the theme of healing and liminality in sociocultural terms. I am working in this area on two projects: I am creating a photogrammetric documentation of the present of villagers who are on the verge of closing one of the largest lignite mines in Europe.

In parallel I am exploring the notion of neurodiversity through self-narratives using diverse artistic media: painting, wideo, installation. With the support of a grant from the City of Warsaw, in March ‘24 I have started an working group to support local artistic environment and to create an useable tool to show the broader condition of neurodiverse cultural workers and artistic individuals.

Mateusz Kowalczyk

2021-2024 Konteksty. Postartistic Congress, Sokolowsko, InSitu/Floating, Sokołowsko / Berlin, PL/DE

2023 Funken Academie Summer School, Kulturhaupstad 2025, Klub Solitaer, WRO Art Center, ArsElectronica, Chemnitz, DE

2023 Ferment XR, public showcase of works from XR laboratorium in Wola Cultural Centre, Warsaw, PL

2023 Dear future, Exhibition on advertising media, in the urban space of Warsaw. Staromiejski Dom Kultury / Promocyjna Gallery, Warsaw, PL

2022 Exuberance. An atlas of infinite possibilities, exhibition summarizing 20 years of the competition by Hestia Artistic Journey, PGS Sopot, PL

2022 Opolno is the Future, The Office for Postartistic Services, group intervention and research PL

2022 The Space of Affairs, performance and installation, The Discomfort of the Evening, Zachęta National Art Gallery, PL

2021 Opolno 2071, The Office for Postartistic Services, group intervention and research PL

2021 Liminal – the Transitional State, group XR exibition and seminar, Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, PL

2021 You Ain’t Going Nowhere, perfromance, 19th Survival Art Review, PL

2020-21 When the Government is Spying in the Forests, Hide in Hemp, group exibition, Naked Nerve, Bwa Wroclaw, PL

2020 Wasteland, 18th Survival Art Review, Wroclaw, PL

2020 The water is you, performative action and group exibition, Generator Malta / Festiwal Malta, Poznan, PL

2019 Group exhibition of the finalists of Hestia’s Artistic Journey, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, PL

2019 Field Actions, 11th Narracje Festival, Performative action and site specific installation in art duo, Gdansk City Gallery / Institute of Urban Culture, PL

2019 Fungal_responses, Mixed reality performance, Dream Adoption Society/Powszechny Theatre, PL

2019 VR Showcase, group XR exibiton, Digital Cultures, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Warsaw, PL

2018 The Water Queen, performance, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, PL

2018 Polish Shaman: A football match for success for the residents of Bródno district, performance, 10th Edition of the Bródno Sculpture Park, PL

2017 – 2018 Gotong Royong, Intervalo Escola, Things We Do Together, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, PL

2017 II International Parajanov Festival, performative interventions, Exibitions Bureau / Adam Mickiewicz Institute, UA

2015-2019 Participation in 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th editions of Bródno Sculpture Park, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, PL

Residencies

2023 The Office for Postartistic Services, research residency stay, Poland

2019 Rupert Center for Art and Education, Lithuania

Awards

2024 Art scholarship of the city of Warsaw

2020 Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for outstanding achievements

2019 Second Prize of Hestia’s Artistic Journey - residental stay

Institutional and educational cooperations

2020 - 2024 Assistant in the Studio of Staging at the Faculty of Media Art, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, PL

2021 - 2024 Artistic cooperation with the Wola Cultural Center in Warsaw: Leading of the first XR laboratory in House of Culture in Poland, and creating a body of works focused on urban design, locality and beyond

Education

2020 Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Master of Fine Arts

2018 Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Bachelor of Fine Arts

Living Labour Mechanisms

(work in progress)

2023

Between July and October 2023 I participated in Funken Academie Summer School which I passed via open call. I worked in a group of 10 artists, with tutors and science team at Fraunhofer ENAS laboratory in Chemnitz in Germany. Our topic was to work through sofisticated scientific process called DNA Orgiami. The summer project resulted in the group exibition of all of Funken Academie SM participants in October 2023 in Chemnitz, for which I have prepared two artworks.

Organisators of the Funken Academie: Kulturhaupstadt Chemnitz 2025, Klub Solitaer, Ars Electronica, Wro Art Center.

DNA origami sessions in Fraunhofer ENAS laboratory in Chemnitz. cc by Johannes Richter, Klub Solitaer

Living Labour Mechanisms

VR 6DoF (Degree of Freedom) experience

3D scans, music composition of field recordings taken in laboratory ~10minutes I invite participant to go for a walk through rescaled petri dish inside which they can read a quote from the publication*, expierence the atmosphere of the laboratory and play with the scale of DNA strains.

The artwork aims to allow the participant to understand one of the elements of scientific process of the mysterious field of molecular science called DNA Origami, which I have had experienced but also to look at this branch of science from more critcal perspective.

*‘Mutant Ecologies. Manufacturing Life in the Age of Genomic Capital’ by Eric Borg and Amedeo Policante

video documentation of VR experience: https://vimeo.com/871098404?share=copy

Screenshot from the VR experience.

Living Labour Mechanisms

Sculpture

Polymorph (biodegradable plastic), tools used in the laboratory, LED light

60x20x17cm

I related to monumental style of Karl Marx head sculpture which is Chemnitz famous for. The use of polymorph to create the sculpture was an important part due to presence of water in the process of preparation of our DNA Origamies in the laboratory.

Pointing up finger bends and misses the direction like the molecular biology when its overtaken by industry and corporation’s interest.

Sculpture detail. Picture from the final group exibiton in Villa Rosa in Chemntiz. both photos cc by Johannes Richter, Klub Solitaer

2021-2023

In January 2021 I started a close cooperation with Wola Cultural Center in Warsaw, initiating the creation of the first XR laboratory operating in a cultural center in Poland. The project resulted in numerous artistic projects done together with the curators. With the curators of the institution in the peak of the pandemic of coronavirus, we tried to find an different alternative language for to communicate and to present topics of local issues, history and architecture. During this cooperation I have developed and learnt the use of new technologies as: 360 video, AR, 3D scanning, creative interactive virtual spaces (Mozilla Hubs), and VR 6DOF expierences.

The conclusion of my cooperation-residency was an exhibition presented to the public in March 2023 and the creation of an accessible collection of my projects on the institution’s website in three language versions:

https://wck-wola.pl/projekt/zasiedzenie-ferment-xr/

3D scan made in the institution interrior by one of the curators.

Selected works created during the cooperation

OKOŁO

2021-2023

360 video, 8:15 min

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pHCXcD6hxs&ab_

channel=WolskieCentrumKultury

In this short para-documentary form of 360 video I focused on empty spaces of one of the districts of Warsaw. For the narration I used my own synth composition, and performative and from time to time absurd actions of appearing 3D scans and passers-by.

It was like this that we bought one CD and from that CD everyone played 2022

interactive experience on Mozilla Hubs platform

I have created 5 virtual and interactive rooms, in which residents of the district spoke through their recorded memories about the ‘90 in Warsaw.

One of virtual room consists of recreated rave club called “Rave” which existed for couple years on the other side of the road in the late ‘90.

Frame from the 360 video, wandering chickens and 3D scan of Warsaw Mermaid

Ferment XR - showcase of the 3 years annivesary of cooperation with Wola Cultural Center in Warsaw, 2023

Ferment XR - show featured 6 different XR projects produced between 2 020 and 2023. Including AR apps, 6DoF VR experience, 6 rooms created via the Mozilla Hubs platform, 10 videos in 360 technology.

Avenue of the Rising Sun VR

2022-2023

The VR experience „Avenue of the Rising Sun” was created in relation to Pawel Althamer’s sculptural composition of the same title, and aims to introduce figures of Belarusian oppositionists resisting the regime of Alexander Lukashenko to wider public awareness.

The project’s premise is the use of a realized 3D scan comprising a figurative composition inspired by figures of Belarusian resistance - Andrei Poczabut, Angelika Borys, Maria Kalesnikova, Natalia Hershe and Alane Gebremariam.

Through interactivity, the use of screen captures from run by belarusan activists website spring96.org, poetry by Valzhhyna Mort, the participant is able to experience a work that speaks about the current belarusian upraising in an alternative way.

Video documentantion of the VR expierence: https://vimeo.com/783371704/b3d2304d4d

Password: Wola

Snapshots from he VR experience.

Space of Cases

2022

Site specific instalation, performative action in duration of 4 days

I did both instalation and performative presence in the main hall of Zacheta National Gallery as a part of the performative program accompanying one of the last exhibitions by the previous curatorial team - Anxiety Comes at Dusk, curated by Magdalena Komornicka. The symbolic stay in the built on the place nest, was a manifest of grief and a intimate shout out to the audience about the current political situation in Poland. That year, the Zachęta National Gallery was retaken by right wing director from the current party PIS (which finally lost the elections on 15th of October 2023).

During my 4-day performative action I spent one day on preparing rescaled nest, and in the rest 3 days I was inviting guest of the gallery to do with me exercises using their imagination. My aim was to change their perspective of space, while sitting in the made-of-sticks-nest in a front of rich staircase from the XIX century.

It was one of the more instructive, moving but also exhausting experiences in my practice.

2021 - ongoing long term project

In the summer of 2021, on the 50th anniversary of the historical symposium, researchers, artists and cultural workers affiliated with The Office for Post-Artistic Services gathered in Opolno-Zdrój in order to, together with the local community, pick up unfinished conversations from 1971.

I as an member of the group each year

I have organised various educational, artistic and social activities supporting the residents of the village endangered with the expansion of Turów mine.

More about The Office for Post-Artistic Services and the context of the project: https://beczmiana.pl/bup/bup-in-english/

Still from video shooting with the view on Turów open mine.

Parade in Opolno-Zdrój with hand made costumes.

Each year I have participated in activities in Opolno Zdrój differently. In 2023, due to rediency stipend I developed my own artistic approach to the topic. I have focused on using a photogrammetry and lidar scanning method to document the destructive activity of the mine in relation between nature and the locatons where resident used to live before they were displaced in the last decades.

I followed the trail of wildlife and remnants of the river, which has lost its spa qualities from years ago, when there was a thriving Saxon sanatorium here.

My second approach was to preserve with 3D scanning parts of the village which probably won’t survive in the next few years due to the expansion of the Mine. This year I will come back to take more shoots using dron. 2024 would be also a year of the last group artistic plenair due to the end of the fund.

A

swing which I made in Opolno, together with local carpenter Kamil for children to play in the forest. Made of parts from the Mine as ropes for setting up explosives and rubber bands used for supporting the 15-tonne boiler at the CHP plant. Painted with nail polish from the only functioning grocery in the village.

Photogrametry scans taken in 2023 in Opolno-Zdrój during my individual residency 3D scans on my sketchfab account: https://sketchfab.com/mateusz8kowalczyk

Remains of river Jasnica.

A collage of scans of different electrical pole bases which indcates where discplaced residents lived.

Barrier which indicates where starts the protected zone of the open mine.

Villa Rudersburg - doctor’s house

2018-2021

Polish Shaman was my main project for the last couple of years and it developed throught series of different performative actions.

Starting point for this project was a need to work with my own spirituality and to performatively react to the current political situation in Poland: growing nationalism on the streets of Warsaw and the influence of the church on public daily life, and politics.

An essential part of the project was inspiration of siberian shamanism, and the role of the shaman in the community, which I tried to bring into modern world, using the language of the contemporary art.

I found a reference in between polish national colors, football gadgets and ecstatic shamanic trance experiences. In referrence to the traditional costumes, I designed and sewed a full costume, containing a headgear, ornaments-sculptures, painted drum.

I addition to that I wanted to make my action more visible in the public space, by creating the impression that there is real Polish Shaman in Poland. For that I designed A4 format leaflets with my services, which in their form resembled e.g. plumbing services. In a short time, I found on the web, pictures of the flyers on the Polish equivalents of sites like Reddit.

10th Edition of Brodno Sculpture Park, 2018

photo by Tomasz Kaczor

In the performative act in November 2018 I have ritually cleaned passage under the main Warsaw’s roundabout few days after nacionalists acompanied with current goverment leaders went on a National March throught the city. More about the project in the collective’s archive that I am part of:

https://krolikokaczki.pl/en/english-szaman-polski/

10th Edition of Brodno Sculpture Park, 2018

photos by Tomasz Kaczor

Cleansing of the Polish Nation performance photo by Gazeta Wyborcza

When the Government is Spying in the Forests, Hide in Hemp installation, fibrous hemp seedlings, LED lamps, gardening foil, pots Naked Nerve, BWA Wrocław Dworzec Główny, 2020-2021

Studio of Mistresses BWA Wrocław was an interesting and developing group process for me led by Joanna Rajkowska, which took place from 2020-2021, resulted in numerous meetings, conversations and a group exhibition in Wroclaw.

I arranged the space of my installation in such a way that visitors to the exhibition could find privacy and allow themselves to commune alone with the growing plant. In a mini temple, in the shape of a hexagram, a bag of earth was prepared for visitors to sit on.

The site-specific installation was made of horticultural foil and copper tubing. The entrance was made of specialized aluminum foil, which is used to reflect light while growing. The entire project took three months to complete, providing the right conditions for the fibrous hemp to grow during that time.

Hemp in the first month. Workers of BWA Wrocław took care, watering and adjusting LED lamps, when the plants grew higher.

Hemp after 3 months. Plants have reached a height of almost 3 metres, and went far above LED lamps.

2019 The immersive experience Fungal_responses was a hybrid performative experience.

The performance was constructed of different layers. A prepared costume of wrath from polish folklore, spoken words, live play on flute. From collected 3D scans of the mushrooms, I designed the avatar. Each part of the body was divided and connected to HTC Trackers, which allowed me to fully control and to perform formation of the body of the avatar in front of the participating in the performance person wearing HTC Valve goggles. For me and the audience, the movement of the trackers was visible on the LCD screen. Act was based on repeated by me in loop, during the performance monologue from a Polish hip-hop track Moja obawa (My fear) by renowned Poland band Kaliber44. With the text I was introducing each person to the designed VR environment in which the body parts were lyingin the tall grass, surrounded with darkness. The project was created with the irreplaceable support of 3D and Virtual Occurences 2 Studio.

Link to the wideo documentation:

https://vimeo.com/421965394

A frames from the video documentation of the performance at the Powszechny Theater, 2019

When working on the project, I was basically inspired by everything that surrounded me. When it comes to works of art, Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead was an additional source of inspiration for me. I was especially driven by its dark visuals alluding to symbolism, which I think describes perfectly the sense of confusion experienced by modern men and women. In this VR project, the Island is a compilation of stories about ourselves. Immersed in virtual reality, we find ourselves surrounded by things that are familiar to us. All of the objects found on the island, as well as the island itself, are 3D scans done with a smartphone. While they might seem to be inconspicuous every-day objects, they carry an unusual meaning. This is true for the dog treat wrapped in a plastic bag, for the religiously important object taken from the Place of Power hidden deeply in the Białowieża pristine forest, the shreds of banknotes once exhibited in one of the Warsaw’s art galleries or my self-portrait, plastic packaging and other objects or randomly found things that were thrown away, existing without function, no longer recyclable.

Link to the wideo documentation:

https://vimeo.com/385844843 Isle