Małgorzata Markiewicz Flower Placing

On August 24th, 2019 at 2:00 PM in Wybicki Square, Gdansk-Wrzeszcz a performance from the series entitled “Flower Placing” by a Cracow artist, Małgorzata Markiewicz shall take place.

The performance is a part of the 11th Grassomania Festival edition.

This action is a part of a long-term project consisting in placing a specific type of flowers in front of monuments dedicated to men. Until now, such performances took place in i.a. Cracow, Warsaw, Grunwald and Milan.

“Flowers” made of clothes shall be placed in front of the Günter Grass monument as tribute to all baby-sitters, cooks, comforters, mothers, muses and lovers appearing in Nobel Prize winner’s novels. Ephemeral and transitory sculptures are supposed to be a symbolic monument erected for those heroines that proved caring, loving and patient for the patriarchy. The performance is dedicated to all the women thanks to whom men could stand on the pedestal of their own glory, but also to those who were refused their presence in the social memory and who spent their lives at the feet of their masters and rulers. 

In a wider sense, the performance critically addresses manly point of view and the oppression of brutality affecting women depersonalised by men due to social functions in a male world superficially attributed to them. Women are still being evaluated based on their looks and age, often being depersonalised and reduced down to the function of those continuing the ‘dynasty’ or ornaments of male pride.

This year, flowers shall be placed on a hundredth anniversary of women being eligible to be admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. In addition, the “Flower Placing” project shall be featured in the “Feminist Visual Activism and the Body” book issued by Routledge series, Routledge Research in Gender and Art in London.

You are welcome to join us!

Małgorzata Markiewicz – lives and works in Cracow. Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. Studied at the Media Action Works run by professor Antoni Poraczak in the faculty of sculpture, and graduated with honours. In 2015 she obtained a PhD degree. Since 2014, she has been working at the Faculty of Arts of Pedagogical University in Cracow, running an authorial Workshop of Critical Projects. In 2004 and 2011 Markiewicz received a scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. She was awarded by numerous prestigious residencies, including 2015 London Summer Intensive UCL and Camden Arts Centre, 2014 CRIR, Christiania, Copenhagen, 2013 Botkyrka Konsthall, Fitja, Stokholm, 2011 Factory for Art&Design Copenhagen, 2007 SPACES, Cleveland Ohio, USA, 2006 HIAP, Cable Factory, Helsinki. The artist is involved in sculpture, photography, fabric and performance. Her artistic practice explores the complexity of modern gender dynamics in the context of home environment and also within the widely understood society. 

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Grassomania is 11 years old!

So far it has been a festival shaped every year according to curatorial concepts of: Iwona Bigos (2009 – 2013), Maria Sasin (2009 – 2013) and Marta Wróblewska (2013 – 2018). After the experience of 10 years we would like to adapt the formula of Grassomania to the current artistic trends and social needs which remain in line with the ideas of democracy and activism. That is why we are handing the creative initiative over to you! Throughout the year we are accepting your applications relating to the broadly understood Günter Grass-inspired themes, with particular emphasis on motifs close to the ideas underlying the Polish Anti-Fascist Year and Gdańsk’s Year of Freedom and Solidarity. It would make us particularly intrigued if you engaged in a live dialogue with the art of Günter Grass, the collection of his works, and the yearly program of the Günter Grass Gdansk Gallery in Gdańsk. We are especially interested in the initiatives which are no stranger to Grass’s inclination towards engaged intellectual polemic, as well as active political, social and artistic responsibility closely connected with taking a stance in important matters of present times. We understand this creative dialogue as the core of democratic society. We associate it with fundamental form of interpersonal communication maintained in a peaceful atmosphere guaranteeing mutual support, and at the same time excluding any kind of hierarchy and segregation. That is why we are counting on your creativity and urge for experimentation! You will find all the details of this call in THE APPLICATION RULES. We are looking forward to your proposals! WE WANT YOU!