Exhibitions on the Revolutions of Matter: Otherworlds

Otherworlds and Extraction are a dual exhibition; two independent narratives from Silesia, the historical land where Anna Orłowska and Michał Łuczak live. The artist and the artist work mainly in the medium of photography. A double exhibition in our largest gallery, BWA Wrocław Główny, is the central exhibition for the institution’s programme in 2023. Orłowska’s Otherworlds is an exploration of her own history and an account of her haunting journey. She takes us to the old village of Sandowitz, today’s Żędowice, where there is a watermill around which successive family generations have lived. Their history is intertwined with water, forests and bog iron, a deposit used since prehistoric times to smelt iron. It gives the Otherworlds their rusty colour. Visitors are guided through them by the soothing voice of the narrator/medium. In the old wooden church of St John of Nepomuk is Hidden Room, a multi-part installation by Anna Orlowska, which is an extension of the exhibition in the gallery at the Central Station. Luczak’s Extraction tells the story of coal and its life cycle. Over the past eight years, he has observed and documented the impact of the mine on the human body, architecture and material culture, as well as on the soil and the landscape. It is a multifaceted visual story on the processes that humanity has constructed against nature to increase its own wealth and standard of living. Extraction is also accompanied by the voices of experts who, in reference to Luczak’s work in Silesia, highlight its universal dimension. Otherworlds and Extraction are linked by a common subheading: Exhibitions on the Revolutions of Matter, and a range of accompanying events. Michał Łuczak’s exhibition is curated by Maciej Bujko, director of BWA Wrocław. Anna Orłowska’s exhibition is curated by Katarzyna Roj, programme director of BWA Wrocław.