ARCHETYPE, CONSCIOUSNESS, PLACE

ARCHETYPE, CONSCIOUSNESS, PLACE – Sulmin, 06.12.2003

The exhibition explores the meanings of symbols in contemporary thinking about history and the future. By documenting human presence through artifacts and transforming them into works of art, the exhibition’s creators (J. Kornacki, T. Krupiński, M. Śmietański) reflected on the role of symbols in modern times. Objects that once existed or still exist carry meanings that are not always clear and are sometimes overlooked.

For Kornacki, the past is a record of human events and actions, and their significance to a place and its connection to it. Krupiński detaches artifacts from their original meanings and transforms them into utilitarian objects. This provocative approach illustrates the cycle of place/world development as an inevitable progression shaped by human nature.

Śmietański’s works look further into the future. By presenting medical artifacts related to diagnosis and treatment, he symbolically reveals what is inevitably to come. Although the environment lives in hope of controlling history, it ignores the signs of the inevitable along the way. This cycle is depicted through anatomical specimens, CT scan documentation, and treatment instruments. Transformed into objects, they record the inevitability of death—already visible in the dehumanized technical records, yet repressed by hope and faith in medicine.

Just as reality and continuity seemed to be enchanted within tombs and artifacts of the past, we similarly ignore signs from the future. This awareness is the motto of the organized exhibition.