ANNA OKRASKO - PORTFOLIO

2012-01-25T14:30:00.000+01:00

"Sobota / Zaterdag /Saturday" at 41st International Film Festival Rotterdam 2012

Cinerama 02 February 22:15
Lantaren Venster 04 February 17:30

2011-11-10T14:55:00.000+01:00

2011-11-10T14:47:00.001+01:00

2011-11-10T14:41:00.000+01:00

2011-07-26T22:06:00.003+02:00

2011-07-22T20:31:00.007+02:00

(views from the show "Anthem for the People’s Tomorrow", a documentation by Edward Thomson)

2011-07-15T20:05:00.004+02:00

http://nocationsybaniatoon.blogspot.com/

and

http://www.toonfibbe.com/

2011-07-11T20:27:00.000+02:00

2011-07-11T20:11:00.001+02:00

2011-07-11T20:04:00.003+02:00

2011-06-15T16:28:00.004+02:00

education:

1999 – 2004 MA Programme in Warsaw’s Academy of Fine Arts, Painting Department (professor Leon Tarasewicz)
2005 completed a postgraduate curse in multimedia in the Cracow’s Academy of Fine Arts (professor Artur Tajber)
2009 - 2011 MA in Fine Art Programme in Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (thesis and final project supervisors: Liesbeth Bik, Bernd Krauss and Monika Szewczyk)

awards:

2011 Nomination for Views 2011 – Deutsche Bank Foundation Award, National Gallery of Art Zachęta, Warsaw, PL

2011 Winner of Promotieprijs, Stichting Promotieprijs, Rotterdam, NL
2011 Winner of Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation Award, PL / CH
2004 Winner of “Debut of the year” Pro Picturae Fundation Award, PL

scholarships and grants:

2010-2011 HSP - Huygens Scholarship Programme, NL

2011 Programma Cultuurbereik DKC Gemeente Rotterdam for the project “Sobota / Zaterdag / Saturday”

2010 Programma Cultuurbereik DKC Gemeente Rotterdam for the project “Balcony Ceremony”
2009 Minister of Culture Scholarship, PL
2005 Minister of Culture Scholarship, PL

residencies:

Locatie Kanaleneiland, Ex podium, Utrecht, NL, 2011

SYB, Beetsterzwaag, NL, 2011

2011-06-04T12:10:00.021+02:00

Dit project is mogelijk gemaakt door Dienst Kunst en Cultuur Programma Cultuurbereik

With the support of the Master of Fine Art programme of the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam.

2011-06-04T11:59:00.001+02:00

2011-06-04T11:35:00.007+02:00

the sculpture is a miniature copy of one of the elements of

Frnaz West's public sculpture tiled "QWERT",

painted metal, 74 x 148 cm.

(photos by Edward Thomson)

2011-04-26T17:10:00.000+02:00

2011-03-30T13:11:00.011+02:00

Questionnaire is composed of Chopin’s Waltz Op. 64 No. 2

as well as footage from two documentaries by

Kazimierz Karabasz: On the Threshold (1965) and Material Test (1981).

2011-01-24T08:56:00.010+01:00

Wake Up, Hooligans!

video, 10’05 min

"Wake Up, Hooligans!" (2010) is a fictional documentary about people trying to vandalize the Rotterdam’s public sphere. The starting point for this project was an analysis of the structure of two Polish documentaries from 1950s. (“Look out, Hooligans!” from 1955 by Jerzy Hoffman and Edward Skórzewski; “People from an empty zone” from 1957 by Kazimierz Karabasz and Władysław Ślesicki).

2011-01-23T18:52:00.005+01:00

catalogues and publications:

- Anthem for the People’s Tomorrow, Spector Books, 2011, p. 60, 64, 66, 68, 80, 81, 120, 155
- Award of the Vordemberge-Gildewart Fundation, MOCAK, Cracow, 2011, p. 24-25
- Magdalena Ujma, in: Czy sztuka jest potrzebna i dlaczego?, Galeria Arsenał, Białystok, 2010, p. 161

- (Mis)reading Masquerades, Revolver, 2010

- Uporczywość, Salon Akademii, Warsaw, 2010

- EASTinternatinal 2009, Norwich Gallery, Norwich, GB, 2009, p. 30-33

- Factory, Bat Yam Museum of Contemporary Art, Bat Yam, Izrael, 2009, p. 14 and 106

- Inspiracje, Szczecin, 2009, p. 153

- Anna Okrasko, Untitled (A Pepe Espaliú), Galeria Czarna, Warsaw, 2008

- „Kwartludium”, Kwarludium, Warsaw, 2008

- Piotr Bazylko and Krzysztof Masiewicz, in: Przewodnik kolekcjonera sztuki najnowszej, Warsaw, 2008, p. 168-169

- Monika Branicka in: New Phenomena in Polish Art after 2000, Warsaw, 2007, p. 108

- 38 Painting Beinnale, Bielska Jesień 2007, Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko – Biała, 2007

- Ewa Małgorzata Tatar, in: Tekstylia bis, Cracow, 2007, p. 612

- Hanna Kuśmirek, Roman Bromboszcz, Katarzyna Otulakowska (ed.), AEM Videoscreenings, Galeria ProjektO.R., Poznań 2007, p. 14

- Grażyna Cybulska, Barbara Swadźba (ed.), 38 Painting Biennale, Bielska Jesień 2007, Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko – Biała, 2007, p. 58

- Catálogo de Obras Seleccionadas Premio de Pintura Focus-Abengoa 2006, Fundación Focus Abengoa, Sevilla, 2006

- WAWART. Artyści warszawscy, Desa Modern, Warsaw, 2006, p. 49

- Joanna Sokołowska and Łukasz Gorczyca in: Frauenleben, Polish Institut, Liepzig, 2006, p. 15 - 16

- Joanna Sokołowska, On Their Own, Zachęta The National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2006

- 70 Malarstwo i grafika artystów urodzonych w latach siedemdziesiątych, Galeria Chimera (D.A. Rempex), Warsaw, 2005, p. 6

- „Ha!art. interdyscyplinarny magazyn kulturalno-artystyczny”, no 21, Cracow 2005 [publications of works, cover]

- Piotr Czerski, Ojciec odchodzi, Cracow 2006 [illustrations, 2005]

- 37 Painting Biennale, Bielska Jesień 2005, Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko – Biała, 2005

- „Europa. Tygodnik Idei”, no 9 (48), p. 1, 7, 11, 15 [publications of works]

2011-01-23T18:32:00.001+01:00

View, 2008

with Kaja Pawełek and Nicolas Sanchez

The “View “ (2008) - a collaborative exhibition by Anna Okrasko, Kaja Pawełek and Nicolas Sanchez was a spontaneous project, which was conceived as a civil protest against the transformation and commercial power overtaking the urban public sphere in Warsaw. The „View” group exhibition was composed of three singular gestures which each of the collaborators made separately in order to protest against a very common practice of covering windows of private flats in Warsaw by advertisements companies.

Anna Okrasko took photographs from Nicolas’ flat, whose windows were covered by an advertisement banner- paradoxically she created very beautiful and seductive images. One of these photographs was installed so that it blocked out an exhibition space of the gallery the programme of which was based on the idea of free accessibility and participation. Nicolas Sanchez wrote a short, semi-fictional story about his life. He illustrated it with pictures made on the magnetic toy for making drawings, which has a very specific pattern, resembling the mesh of a banner. Kaja Pawełek wrote a critical text, which was published in „Gazeta Wyborcza”, one of the biggest Polish newspapers. Every part of the project was presented the same date at the Witryna Gallery, which is situated in the same square as Nicolas’ apartment.

2011-01-23T14:45:00.009+01:00

I work with video, installation and sculpture. Currently I have been making fictional documentaries. Very often the starting point for my practice is a question of the possibilities for reclaiming the city’s spaces by its inhabitants. I believe in the political potential of small gestures and private rituals performed within the public spheres. For the last couple of years I have been exploring strategies for citizens to negotiate their urban areas, celebrating and shaping them freely. I see my works as proposals for possibilities of intervening in the city’s daily life and as modifications to already existing ceremonies. The work is celebratory and convivial in character.

In addition I have been investigating the idea of community set against manifestations of singularities. A notion of citizenship in opposition to the notion of nationhood is also relevant to me. At the moment I am investigating the idea of antagonism, which I feel should become more present in a supposed neutrality of many urban public areas.

Moreover, I am trying to investigate different formats for setting up platforms to allow the creative collaboration with other people.

2010-07-30T14:07:00.011+02:00

2010-07-09T13:20:00.014+02:00

"One Minute Of Silence" (2010)
is a to-camera performance, a stop–motion video + audio, a loop projection on the wall, 1‘22 min

2010-07-06T12:43:00.010+02:00

- a portable balcony on wheels, a board for posters and leaflets, a bicycle, dimensions: 230 x 190 in base, high: 185 cm

2010-07-06T12:38:00.003+02:00

2010-07-06T12:24:00.005+02:00

distributing leaflets:

- documentation by Priscila Fernandes, Serena Lee and Martijn in't Veld, 2010

2010-07-06T12:10:00.011+02:00

Leaflets were translated into English, Bahasa Indonesia, Serbian,Arabic, Polish, Turkish, Greek, Italian, Dutch, Kreol, Sranan Tongo,Cantonese and Russian.

- leaflets, stencil print on paper, 21 x 8 cm each (dimensions of the whole set are variable)

2010-07-06T11:49:00.016+02:00

“Balcony Ceremony” (2010) is a project developed from my interests into the subject of community and ways of celebrating and manifesting our presence or citizenship within a city’s public spaces. My ideas have grown from an investigation into Rotterdam’s history, the city’s public sphere and its population. As I had moved to the city in September 2009, I proposed a ceremony of welcome. I sent an invitation to citizens of Rotterdam to participate in an unconventional welcoming celebration. People were invited for this public event to their private balconies. They were asked to present to the city Rotterdam’s new members: the citizens’ newborn babies. I invited people to come out on their balconies, with their babies in their arms and present them to the community, in a monarch-like gesture of introducing to the citizens a new member of a royal family. The idea was that people would collectively do the same gesture, on the same day, at the same hour (10 of April, at 15:00).

During a period of three weeks before the 10 of April 2010 leaflets inviting participation in the Balcony Ceremony were distributed in many public spaces in Rotterdam. They were given to people in front of the City Hall in Coolsingel and in the markets of Rotterdam: Delfshaven, Blaak and Afrikaanderplein. Flyers where also delivered into mailboxes in some, selected houses in district of Delfshaven and Center of the city. In addition the invitation was spread out in the city crèches and by posting it in the streets of Rotterdam. Leaflets were translated into English, Bahasa Indonesia, Serbian, Arabic, Polish, Turkish, Greek, Italian, Dutch, Kreol, Sranan Tongo, Cantonese and Russian.

I deliberately took the decision not to take any photographic documentation of an actual event (action of presenting a child to the city), nor did I arrange any meetings with people who had stated that they would enact this gesture. I made no attempt to verify whether anyone had participated in the ceremony on the proposed date. My intention was for the whole project to function as a city legend, a utopian and impossible dream of a rising forth of the community of Rotterdam.

The project was supported by:

2010-07-06T11:34:00.008+02:00

The Birthday Flag of Ania Okrasko Born the 5th of May, 2010

A hand-painted, colorful text on a green fabric, presented in a street of Rotterdam the 5th of May 2010.

The 5th of May is a Dutch national holiday and my birthday.

2010-07-06T11:21:00.005+02:00

255.000 CHF, the Passengers Festival 2009

The project “255.000 CHF” developed within a framework of the Passengers Festival, which takes place annually in a public space in Warsaw. In 2009 works presented in the festival were dealing with the issue of the crisis in real estate market.

I met Zuzanna in March 2009. She was one of the curators of the Passengers Festival. I asked her, if she was paying off a mortgage. Indeed, she had to pay off installments in CHF. Before the economical crisis, it had been the best currency to choose, in order to obtain a cheap credit in Polish banks. After the crash, a cost of installments raised dramatically. We made an agreement that for half a year, we would hang out together every first day of the following month. It was the date of making a transfer for paying off the credit. We would meet each other in order to build visual representations of Zuzanna’s home, taking into consideration her mood, caused by a change of a price of the instable currency. We were using as a studio, a “wasteland” located in a district where I used to live in Warsaw. Each time we went there, Zuzanna would invite her friends, engaging them in the playful process of constructing houses.

The process was documented with stop-motion videos and photographs.

2010-07-06T10:29:00.091+02:00

March

April

May

June

July

August

- photographs by Anna Okrasko, 2009

2010-07-05T16:05:00.060+02:00

2010-07-05T13:20:00.164+02:00

Kaja Pawełek

"A fish called Warsaw - how to regain the view?"

Try to spray a slogan “Intense stories. Real life” on a facade of a building on Warsaw’s plac Konstytucji. As soon as the word “life”, your hand will be grasped by a policeman that came out of nowhere

.

But if the sign like that, was printed on a mesh print and was few dozen meters long, no policeman would show up – though the sign is as much illegal, like the one scribbled with paint. This slogan, promoting a certain TV channel, sounds incredibly cynical in those circumstances, just like a slogan of a certain bank printed over windows of a different Warsaw’s building said “a view with a window”.

I don’t want to deliberate once again about who allows those practices, and why they are still repeating. Those issues were described by Warsaw’s local press many times, debates were organized, town clerks were interrogated, statements of the spokesmen of housing associations who decide about hanging mega-advertisements on buildings were quoted. Also the voices of the most interested were brought up – like one lady’s which in here own apartment, filled the whole night with halogen lights from the building next door, feels like “corps in a dissection room”. Simultaneously a different point of view is necessary – the one that shouldn’t be mistaken with nostalgia for mythical perfect city from the past (which never existed). This view on a house tightly packed by an advertisement, and on residents imprisoned in this bizarre cocoon, leads to a question - how is that possible, that an incapacitation of a citizen happened right in front of us?

In a discussion about outdoor advertising and public space in Poland, the main focus is on the visual and legal chaos. Yet the view is important not only as a movable urban frame, which has it’s own soundtrack, “smell-track”, “emotional-track”. Urban sight also means something, and this announcement seems to be fundamental.

Is it a part of a city dweller’s multicomponent story, linked with their everyday life, dreams or just a stream of statements propelling the consumption?

Where public and private spaces meet, there are regular acts of violence, limiting the freedom and interfering in the intimacy of inhabitants’ lives. This violence is based on an alibi shaped in form of an agreement between the housing associations, and of the mantra-like argument about the obtained resources for renovating the buildings. This is of course a classic TINA (There Is No Alternative) – exposing a situation, which has no other option. Choose: either a falling down facade, or a window covered for eighteen months. All this is humiliating – even if majority of the habitants has agreed to live with it.

Advertising companies “tame” them, first hanging a brighter advertisement, just to hang another one – colorful and not as much see-through. Just few rebel. There was one person who constructed a roller blind to gain access to the day light. It lasted two weeks, until the advertising company replaced the ad with a new one, and the representatives of the housing association threaten the rebellious inhabitant with a lawsuit.

The surprising thing is, that the property right benefits only those, who illegally appropriate the power, not only over the public space, but also over the private one. Advertising mesh, hung against construction or conservation regulations is untouchable, but the sight fromm the window – value immaterial but unquestionably due to every inhabitant – not so much.

Gigantic advertisement covering people’s window on the world – both metaphorically and literally - cover the square - formerly symbolic fragment of the city – in addition, ironically Konstytucji square – mean a lot more than only aggressive appropriation and privatization of the public space. The ads divide two spheres in a physical way: the common space and the domestic, intimate sphere - the mythical place of happiness according to the theories of Gaston Bachelard, which combined allow a rightful life in the city. The sight of the commercial announcements covering he windows of the private flats is appalling not because it’s unaesthetic, but because it’s unethical - it symbolizes violence.

Warsaw’s citizens suggested through the local press, that the ones that should react and do something, are the inhabitants, and we - meaning all the others – could back them up if needed. It’s reasonable – it’s hard to rebel for someone else – but it also shows a lack of basic empathy, which leads not to hypocritical pity, but citizen activity, and the will to oppose.

It is an important moment – it shows the lack of strong community of the citizens. Yet in this case, the victims of the violence are not only the inhabitants of the covered houses, but also all of those, who sees this view.

Editor-in-chief of the “Gazeta Stołeczna”, not being able to wait much longer for a firm student’s protest, or are action of the university’s authorities, submitted an open letter about the covered windows in the Warsaw’s

Polytechnic dormitory “Riviera”.

“The windows, balcony and loggia’s meaning in the urban conditions is strengthen; these are almost the lungs of a home – they bring the air and sun closer to the inside of a flat.A window is an old invention and a common element of an interior, and we would consider it’s purpose as a quite clear one. Human malice though, can radically cover up these basic functions” - as Jan Szymański has noticed in his “Book about living” in 1962.

If we searched for analogies, it would be crucial to remind you about the first of may propaganda stage design of PRL.Righ there, on the plac Konstytucji, people’s windows where covered by portraits of Bierut and Stalin – but

even they weren’t stuck there for one and a half year. Polish cities instead of radically improving the situation, decide on temporary solutions, like covering damaged facades, or coating the wall with bizarre ornaments like for example pseudo-graffiti.It looks like well known from the history installations, that were supposed to simulate a better reality through creating a collective hallucination.

There is no end when it comes to writing about symbolic and meaning of a window. It’s hard to imagine 17th century Netherlands painting or Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” without a window theme. For many years Józef Robakowski, the leading figure of the polish video art and experimental film, has been creating a famous recording “ A view from my window”. If Robakowski lived today in plac Konstytucji, he wouldn’t record much.

His film narration excellently catch esthething that is so special about a view from your own window - private, subjective narration of daily, repetitive but also fresh spectacle. The thing that combines the public and the private

sphere is the point of view – from the inside - allowing the emplacement and self-determination in the topography of the city, as well as from the outside - the look of others, who’s window shows the presence of other members of the community, the mark of their private life in the tissue of the city.

In “Postpolis”, Ewa Rewers relating to the character from Franz Kafka’s novel and E.T.A Hoffmann, and also Henri Lefebvre’s texts wrote: “Trapped between the interior and the window, between solitude and society, which attempts to control them according to the rhythm of drawing closer and further from the urban spectacle, reaching simultaneously the eyes (marks), the ears (voices) through the window, attempting to adjust it’s internal rhythms to the urban rhythms, which are the rhythms of the social life (...) urban world constitutes itself it the consciousness of a lonely object as a subjective reality. The old metaphor of a room with a window, through which we see the world, is a continuation of the dichotomy of the metaphysics: an inner world separated from the outer world, the object from the knower, distanced subject”. Another artist, Jacek Niegoda has started, in Robakowski’s block of flats in Łódź, a committee to mark the famous window with an edge of a gigantic arrow, which ends on the same building on a random window advertising a supermarket. It’s symptomatic, that this urban symphony, which excites modernists, this spectacle with an uncontrolled course, is not a serious argument any more. Today, we can only talk about regulations and boundaries of a control, not about participating in life and the urban flow. The logic of fragmentation and segregation, manifesting itself in the form of closed housing estates, destroys a reflexion on the space of the city as a superior idea and value which has a true meaning for the inhabitants at the same time.

This particular text has been created as an effect of the opposition towards violence noticeable by the fellow-townsman of this city. Perhaps the answer to the lost view from the window should be a movement similar to the “reclaim the streets” - only that concerning liberation of houses, regaining individual view from our – but also at our – homes. Objection against the commercial expansion, clerical incapacity and the blurred responsibility for, still common, city.

- text was published in “Gazeta Wyborcza”, 10.06.2008

- photographs by Anna Okrasko, 2008

2010-07-05T12:41:00.006+02:00

e-mail: aniaokrasko@gmail.com

2010-07-05T12:37:00.039+02:00

solo exhibitions:

2011 Sobota, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cracow, PL

2010 Balcony Ceremony, a presentation of the project in ADA (area for debate and art), Rotterdam, NL

2009 255.000 CHF, Passengers Festival 2009, Warsaw, PL.

2008 These Works Will Never Have Any Title, BWA Zielona Gora, PL

2008 View, Witryna Gallery, Warsaw, PL (with Kaja Pawełek and Nicolas Sanchez). Curated by Agnieszka Sural and Julia Staniszewska

2008 Untitled (a Pepe Espaliú), Czarna Gallery, Warsaw, PL

2007 Choppers, Center for Contemporay Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, PL

2007 Biurocracy, BWA Studio Gallery, Wrocław, PL (with Rahim Blak)

2006 Nulla Dies Sine Linea / No Single Day Without a Line, Klima Bochenska Gallery, Warsaw, PL

2006 Paintings, Pies Gallery, Poznan, PL

2006 Valentine’s Eve, TR Warsaw, Warsaw, PL (with Karol Radziszewski)

2005 Candles for the Holy Father, Otwarta Pracownia, Cracow, PL

2005 How to Make Paintings, Zakret Gallery, Warsaw, PL

2005 Contract of Commission, TR Warszawa, Warsaw, PL (with the cooperation of Raster Gallery)

2004 My Professor Paints Stripes and I Paint Dots because It’s More Girlish, Wizytująca Gallery, Warsaw, PL

2003 Female Painter Makes for a Painter’s Wife, Painting Department, The Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, PL

selected group exhibitions:

2012 Urban Research, Directors Lounge 2012, Berlin, DE

2012 41st edition of International Rotterdam Film Festival, screening of film “Sobota / Zaterdag / Saturday”

2011Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation Award, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cracow, PL

2011 Views 2011 – Deutsche Bank Foundation Award, National Gallery of Art Zachęta, Warsaw, PL

2011 Anthem for the People’s Tomorrow, Station Bergweg, Rotterdam, NL. Curated by Ellen Blumenstein

2011 Hello to the People, SYB, Friesland, NL

2011 I want to believe, Wolfart, Rotterdam, NL

2010 Persistence, Salon Akademii, Warsaw, PL

2009 Enter-Escape, Szczecin, PL

2009 Factory, MoBy Museum, Bat-Yam, IL

2009 EASTInternational 2009, Norwich, GB. Curated by Lynda Morris

2009 Book in Polish Art and Culture, Wydawnictwo Delikatesy Gallery, Cracow, PL

2008 With Eyes Shut, Czarna Gallery, Warsaw, PL

2008 Heritage, Zamek Culture Centre, Poznan, PL

2008 Fiera dell”Arte a buon mercato. Mostra a cura della Galleria Raster, Instituto Polacco di

Roma, Rome, IT

2007 Women’s Holiday 2007, Cracow, PL

2006 Premio de Pintura 2006, Fundacion Focus-Abegoa, Sevilla, ES

2006 Art in the service of lefties?, Kronika Gallery, Bytom, PL. Curated by Sebastian Cichocki

2006 Move, Klima Bochenska Gallery, Warsaw, PL

2006 Frauenleben, Polish Institute, Leipzig, DE

2006 On Their Own. Graduates of Leon Tarasewicz’s Atelier, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, PL

2005 Villes Anciennes – Art Nouveau, Cracow in Quebec, CA

2004 Exhibition in The Palace – old Casino, Podkowa Lesna, PL

2004 ZOR. Traffic Order Remaking, Laboratorium Gallery, Center for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, PL

film festivals:

2012 Urban Research, Directors Lounge 2012, Berlin, DE

2012 41st edition of International Rotterdam Film Festival, screening of film “Sobota / Zaterdag / Saturday”

screenings:

2011 Sobota / Zatertdag / Saturday, a screening organized in Around the Corner, Rotterdam, NL

2011 Watch out, Documentaries, a screening organized in Around the Corner, Rotterdam, NL

2010-02-12T21:35:00.020+01:00

Anna Okrasko was born in 1981 in Warsaw, Poland. She graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, Painting Department in 2004. In 2005 she completed the postgraduate course in multimedia at Cracow Academy of Fine Arts. Currently she has also graduated from the Master programme in Fine Art at the Piet Zwart Institute, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She exhibited nationally and abroad. Her work was presented in individual and group shows, among others: in the Warsaw's Center for Contemporary Art, Zachęta The National Gallery of Art (Warsaw) and East International 2009 in Norwich (GB). Recently, she has been awarded with the scholarship of the Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation (PL / CH) and the Promotieprijs 2011 by Stichting Promotieprijs in Rotterdam (NL).