The opening of the 57th International Ceramic and Sculpture Symposium will take place on Friday, July 30, at 6:00 p.m. at the “W sam raz” gallery at BOK–MCC. As part of the opening, there will be an opening reception for the exhibition of ceramics by Stanisław Brach: Honey Flowing: A Manifesto of Interspecies Solidarity.
During the opening reception, covering the mouth and nose with a mask and maintaining distance are mandatory.
The exhibition to be presented in Bolesławiec was written about by Katarzyna Kasia, a doctor of philosophy, academic lecturer, as well as a columnist and radio and television journalist.
The ancient skeptic Aenesidemus asked how we actually know that the world is the way humans perceive it. How do we know that the perception of a being from another species is not more accurate? What do we base our conviction of the superiority of the human perspective on? Although in reality we have no grounds for doing so, we arrogate to ourselves the right to impose the structure of our perception and the conceptual framework we have developed on everything around us. We have made ourselves comfortable within the humanistic paradigm, and we are proud of the idea that we are the measure of all things. It is extremely difficult to move beyond the boundaries of such thinking. It requires questioning a centuries-old tradition, perhaps even a substantial part of humanity’s achievements, and the belief that being human is inherently valuable.
Stanisław Brach’s series of works, “Honey Flowing,” grows out of an entirely different way of thinking: the artist does not so much create as co-create with nonhuman beings, respecting their work and the way they function in the world. His works are a manifesto of solidarity with insects, without which the ecosystem of our planet—as scientists demonstrate—is doomed to destruction. We owe bees themselves much more than just honey: they are responsible for one-third of what we eat. As they become increasingly threatened and fewer of them remain on Earth, we should constantly remind ourselves of how important they are.
Stanisław Brach shows not only the beauty of the products created by bees, but also draws attention to the fragility of their lives. The artist’s work embodies interspecies understanding and empathy, resulting in works that not only do not interfere with the existence of bees or transform them into objects subordinated to humans, but include them as agents in the creative process.
Katarzyna Kasia
Stanisław Brach, born in 1972 in Gorlice. Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Since 2010, he has headed the Ceramics Studio at the Faculty of Sculpture of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. A graduate of the Faculty of Sculpture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where he received his diploma in the studio of Professor Marian Konieczny in 2000, and of the Ceramic Technical School in Łysa Góra (1987–1993). In 2014, he obtained a postdoctoral degree in fine arts at the Faculty of Sculpture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. Winner of the Rector’s Award at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2011, 2019), and a scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2014) for the artistic project “Two Spaces.” Finalist of the international Taiwan Ceramics Biennale 2016 competition, and winner of a gold medal for the works Honey Flowing at the 45th Apimondia 2017 International Apicultural Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, and the 46th Apimondia 2019 International Apicultural Congress in Montreal, Canada.
Organizer of several dozen solo and group exhibitions and participant in numerous international symposiums and competitions, including in Italy, Japan and Taiwan. His works are held in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Sculpture at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy, the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taiwan, the Palace of Arts in Lviv, and private collections.