Terytorium II

Zuza Golińska’s explorations grow out of her experience of space, which she conceives in physical, social and private categories. She gives much attention to the relationship between an individual and architecture, to a human being’s place in shared areas, and to the perception of public space. Golińska’s works are the result of a dialogue between the body and the organised structure of the immediate environment, and a record of an individual’s experience of place. Many of her works are based on a direct relationship with her body: its proportions are reflected in the dimensions of the sculptural installations. This principle of Golińska’s work has its source in the lessons she had learnt in Mirosław Bałka’s studio.

Although the emotional factor is crucial to the process of creating, and also perceiving, Golińska’s sculptures and installations, the form and material are equally important to her. She refers to well-known utilitarian objects and architectural models, subjecting them to far-reaching deconstructions. The architecture of Modernism and the heritage of the former Eastern Bloc are an important area of her explorations. In her interpretation, it is not architecture or an object that discipline a person; it is a person’s body that subjugates the elements of public space. Sculptures and installations inspired by architectural objects or artefacts show a sui generis flexibility; they are closer to the human scale and provide a sense of comfort.

The materials used by Golińska are never random; her choice of material has an ethical dimension. The object Territory II was made from used steel from the Gdańsk shipyard. Capitalism, by-products of the operation of large industrial enterprises, and current discussions on the overproduction of material objects and the climate crisis are important contexts for this work. Steel from this shipyard also has a private dimension for Golińska: many of her family members used to be employed there. Golińska herself conducts her creative work in the shipyard’s workshops, pitting herself not only against the difficult material: her explorations are a debate with the myth of a worker and the perception of manual labour as masculine. The gesture of reaching for a waste material situates her explorations in the tradition of arte povera of the 1970s, which, paradoxically, was dominated by men promoting anti-capitalist ideas and speaking out against the commercialisation of art.