Uniform

In his Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), Bronisław Malinowski referred to the myth popular among the residents of the Trobriand Islands, who believed that the souls of the dead travelled to the island of Tuma. Its habitants were supposed to grow old and then get rejuvenated by shedding their skin. Dependence between “skin-shedding” and the cyclic nature of life, which constitutes the core of these beliefs, makes them a fitting background to the interpretation of the work Uniform by Iza Tarasewicz.

The work, completed during Tarasewicz’s study tour to Georgia, was presented at The Creature, the exhibition closing the residency period (part of Artisterium 2011, Georgian National Museum – Tbilisi History Museum). Tarasewicz has repeatedly stressed that in the case of works prepared for this exhibition, the circumstances of their making are of the essence. Her finding herself in a new cultural milieu, in a new language environment, resulted in a sharpening of intuition and heightened sensitivity to everything that is not a direct given. Thus, a new quality – the hard-to-identify energy resulting from a meeting with the unknown, to which body and matter are no more than a locus, has appeared in the sphere of artistic investigations performed by Tarasewicz, who has always been focused on matter (usually organic matter) associated with the biological life of human beings and of the world that surrounds them.

The Uniform, similarly to other objects created in Georgia, is made from materials found on the spot. Its form and meanings revolve around associations aroused by the title of the exhibition: “the creature”, that is a living being. Tarasewicz is interested in everything that is associated with life processes, from its inception through changes occurring in its course to dying. Especially important to her are the issues linked with the rituals that are performed along this path and their attendant stages of passage. Tarasewicz created the Uniform making use of a discarded animal skin. This act is an interpretation of her belief in the eternal existence of matter, which does not vanish, but only undergoes changes. Tarasewicz imparted a new form on it by sewing a “garment”, a second skin which, still imbued with the former energy, becomes a locus prepared for some new quality. Transformed into a new quality, a shed skin turns into a metaphor for the circulation of matter, the multidimensionality of its changes, and the endless changeability of life.

Izabela Kopania
translated from Polish by Klaudyna Michałowicz

photo Jan Szewczyk

photo Jan Szewczyk

photo Jan Szewczyk