Intersection Worlds ― Detroit, L鏚z, Berlin

In the last three decades, a "new physiognomy of the continent" arose (Schlögel 2005). The breakdown of structures caused by political and, more importantly, economic developments gave Ewa Trafna during a visit to Detroit the impulse to artistically engage with her experiences of abandoned property, industrial wastelands, and the standstill of urban communication in previously thriving cityscapes. Overseas, the artist experienced something that was familiar to her both biographically and from the fate of Polish and German cities like Lódz, Bytom, Walbrzych as well as Oberhausen, Bitterfeld, Eisenhüttenstadt and Berlin (Oberschöneweide).

Trafna's series, originating from the memory of Detroit – although it is by all means also currently a geopolitical burning issue – expresses in a universal way how architecture bears witness to an era, both its successful times and its setbacks. But with further change they are whitewashed, built upon, repurposed. New cityscapes are created, whose transformations are barely noticeable on site, but which are not only documented by artists like Trafna, but also granted an artistic visage. Art is an actor that engages in the process of urban forgetting and remembering.

Trafna's work provides now an opportunity to pause for a moment and a space to re-think this intermediate state between past and future, both in its melancholy but also its potential.

Ewa Trafna, painter, sculptor, and performance artist, was a 1978 to 1983 master class student of Barbara Zbrozyny and held numerous solo exhibitions between 1981-2014 (including Galeria Rzezby, Galeria Krytykow Pokaz, Galeria Milano, Galerie Ignas Koln, Akademisches Forum Graz, Cranach-Stiftung Wittenberg, Galerie U. Usakowskiej-Wolf Bad Herford, Luxembourg Castle Konigsstein, Polish Theatre Bydgoszcz, Center for Polish Sculpture Oronsk, Museum Pila, Galerie Mages Augsburg, Studio-Galerie Dusseldorf, Polnisches Institut Dusseldorf, Kunstmuseum Ein-Hod, Galerie Der Ort Berlin, Kunstgalerie Zernikow, Galerie BWA Kielce, University of Detroit Mercy, Museum Stutthof). 2001 design and realisation of a monument in Jedwabne, 2002 main prize at the International Biennale of Architecture, Krakow, 2002 award for a concept for the Janusz Korczak memorial, 2003 re-design of the Marymont church, Warsaw, 2008 installation at the Jesuit church at Swietojanska-street, Warsaw, 2012 second prize for the memorial in Smolensk, 2015 memorial site in Woli (prize of honor).

Uta Schorlemmer, scholar of theatre studies and educator, studied 1990-1996 in Berlin, Paris; and Krakow, completed her doctorate on the polish director Krystian Lupa between 1999-2003, was a research fellow at GWZO/University of Leipzig and lecturer at the institute of theatre studies on the University of Bern between 2003-2006, curated several exhibitions in Leipzig and Krakow, was an adjunct professor at the German department of Occidental College between 2008-2010, Los Angeles, since 2011 teacher in Berlin, 2015 awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. Numerous publications, including Die Magie der Annaherung und das Geheimnis der Distanz. Krystian Lupas Recherche “neuer Mythen” im Theater (2003); Tadeusz Kantor. Er war sein Theater (2005/2010); Kunst ist ein Verbrechen. Tadeusz Kantor, Deutschland und die Schweiz (2007).