Interlacing, a site specific installation excuted for the exhibition Why not here?, inaugurated the new space of Wschód gallery in Warsaw – the birthplace of Wschód and the city which has so drastically changed within recent decades. The exhibition title prompts evermore recurring questions on how to situate oneself within one’s surroundings. Can ‘here’ enforce a set boundary to one’s endeavor? Is a desire to belong a calling of human nature, or are we silently wishing for the order to crumble so that ‘here’ can be just what we want it to be?

Why not here?
Karolina Bielawska
Cudelice Brazelton IV
Jan Domicz
Kamil Dossar
Keta Gavasheli
Raha Raissnia

February 20 – March 29, 2025
Wschód Warsaw

“Executed specifically for the new location of Wschód, Interlacing springs from the very roots of the gallery space in Warsaw’s verdant Saska Kępa district. Here the gallery’s formal framework is extended so as to resonate more profoundly with the grounds on where it is standing. The seeming flourishing of the steel components, the very branches of Interlacing burgeoning from the prewar windows and entwining the architecture tenderly suggest the presence of an intricate organism of its own.

The construction of Interlacing is deployed from hand painted soft metal rods, each expressing a direction of growth and contributing to a vine-like composition. As if striving for a prosperous expansion, Interlacing captures the sensation of advancing, albeit uneasy conditions, and mimicking the nature of gallery practices and the developments of its artists. Our environment, including external facades, windows, terrace, and a garden, takes on a role of the canvas – Interlacing becoming a painting in space.

Characteristically for Bielawska’s practice, emotionally charged works are often made in response to the memory of a particular place, herein shaping a site-specific sensibility. With Interlacing, a more immediate response took place: variations of light, winter slowly making space for spring, ever changing nature somewhat clashing with concrete structures – all prompted a novel intervention into the present. The environment as a background to the work, as well as its principal component. Longitudinal boughs and twigs of Interlacing acquiring that somewhat all embracing quality. Evoking the touch of nature in this inceptive embrace, Bielawska’s work initiates an enduring correlation between the life outside and the life within.”

Text excerpt by Michalina Gulewicz, 2025