Common Landscape / Greeting a Stranger

Common Landscape / Greeting a Stranger
28.03-25.05.2025
Arsenal Gallery power station, Białystok
13 Elektryczna St. (entrance from Świętojańska St.)
Curators: Yulia Kostereva, Yuriy Kruchak, NienTing Chen

Artists: Piotr Armianovski [UA]; atelienormalno (Artem Ibadulaev, Iryna Holoborodko, Yevhen Holubentsev, Katya Libkind, Anna Litvinova, Valentyn Radchenko, Anna Sapon, Valeriya Tarasenko, Stanislav Turina) [UA]; Maksym Buba [UA]; ChunTien Chen [TW]; Tiko Imnadze [GE]; Daniel Kotowski [PL]; Ghenadie Popescu [MD]; Stefan Rusu [MD]; Benas Sarka [LT]; Janek Simon [PL]; Mishiko Sulakauri [GE]; Walking Grass Agriculture (HanSheng Chen and HsingYou Liu) [TW]; MaLi Wu [TW]

Opening: 28.03.2025 (Friday), 6 p.m.

The international group exhibition ‘Common Landscape / Greeting a Stranger’ presents works in various media of contemporary socially engaged artists from Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Taiwan and Ukraine.  The exhibition outlines a society living on a geopolitical fault line and trying to find the keys, the common ground on which we can build a more just future. Keeping the issues of decolonization and deimperialisation in focus, the artists’ works rethink existing political and ideological constraints, geopolitical fractures, and fragmentation. ‘Common Landscape’ seeks to build bridges across diverse individual experiences and different contexts based on trust and solidarity. The exhibition asks how to represent a field where knowledge is only being created.

The exhibition Common Landscape / Greeting a Stranger is an artistic response to the events of recent years and their tangible consequences, which highlight the ineffectiveness of previous global conventions, significant geopolitical shifts and fractures, the fragmentation of democratic communities, and the willingness of certain countries to reshape the world order in favor of authoritarian regimes. Over the past four years, we have witnessed a series of critical developments: the migration crisis on the EU’s eastern border, which peaked in late 2021; the violent suppression of protests in Kazakhstan in early 2022; Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022; the third Karabakh war in September 2023 and the subsequent reintegration of Karabakh into Azerbaijan; large-scale Chinese military exercises simulating the encirclement and complete blockade of Taiwan, the most recent of which took place in October 2024; and the erosion of political freedoms in Georgia, accompanied by mass protests that have been ongoing since March 2023, reaching a peak in December 2024. Additionally, we have seen the rise of right-wing populist movements and their ascent to power in parts of Europe and the United States.

Globalization brings both challenges—manifesting as various global crises—and opportunities, particularly in fostering a deeper understanding of the modern world’s interconnectedness. The ongoing struggles for freedom and independence in Georgia and Taiwan, and especially the war and the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people, have compelled many countries to rethink their national and international priorities, more clearly define their paths of development, and reassess the significance of protecting freedom and justice.

The exhibition Common Landscape / Greeting a Stranger does not seek to resolve the contradictions of our time but rather takes them as a starting point for discussions on solidarity in the present and the pursuit of a just future. Its central idea is to showcase the practices of artists who, through the lens of their personal needs, desires, and concerns, not only depict the social realities of their countries but also actively contribute to change. Their actions are inherently performative—understood here as actions that provoke tangible effects.

While Common Landscape / Greeting a Stranger places particular emphasis on artistic processes in Poland and neighboring countries such as Ukraine, Lithuania, and Moldova, it also employs the perspective of the “outsider” or “stranger”—a figure whose role is to ask or provoke questions that might otherwise go unspoken. These are questions that those living within a given historical and social context may not articulate, whether due to historical traumas or societal and state-imposed conventions. In the exhibition, artists from Georgia and Taiwan take on this role, enabling a multiplicity of viewpoints that help transcend the limitations of individual perspectives. This approach bridges the gap between the insider’s lack of necessary distance from current realities and the outsider’s potential lack of deep local understanding. At the same time, it brings together artists from regions that rarely, if ever, appear in a single exhibition, fostering new dialogues and connections.

The term landscape in the exhibition’s title serves as a metaphor for horizontal connections and interconnectedness. It is understood as a composition of elements that encompass the past, present, and future. By examining the landscape, we can gain insight into why events unfold as they do.

The exhibition’s structure highlights a broad spectrum of performative actions—movement/space, body/voice, word/text, material usage, and audience interaction—analyzing each individually. This approach demonstrates the diverse tools that can be employed to create tangible change within specific sociopolitical and sociocultural contexts.

The exhibition aims to: showcase the practices of socially engaged contemporary artists from six countries; reflect on the historical periods and processes that have led to our current reality; provide a platform for fostering sociocultural connections across different nations; bring together artists who actively challenge the status quo on complex sociopolitical issues and envision proactive strategies to address them; develop a form of representation for ongoing processes and emerging knowledge.

In the search for the “good scenario” that society needs, the curatorial team does not seek to oversimplify complexity or disregard reality. We do not yet fully grasp what art represents in the current moment—but, fortunately, we can engage in dialogue to explore and discover it together.

Curatorial text [PDF]

Events accompanying the exhibition

28.03.2025 (Friday), 6 pm

VERNISSAGE

Delighting – a performance by Daniel Kotowski 

29.03.2025 (Saturday), 12 pm

Guided tour with the curators and artists

Dates: 03-12.04.2025 

Artistic and social laboratory subsidized by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland and under the patronage of the Minister for European Union Affairs during the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2025

From April 3 to 10 (except Monday, April 7) from 10 am to 4 pm, someone from the artists and curators will be on duty at the exhibition. In addition to the workshops and events described below, we will be cooking and socializing. We invite you to talk and eat together.

Program of the Laboratory

events marked with an asterisk will be conducted in English, with translation into Polish if needed

03.04.2025  (Thursday) 12- 4 pm       

A day with atelienormalno* 

(Participants: Irina Goloborodko, Valeria Tarasenko, Katya Libkind, Stanislav Turina)

atelienormalno is a Kyiv-based studio where artists with and without Down syndrome work together on texts, interviews, exhibitions, projects and self-published books.

In Bialystok, part of the team of atelienormalno – artists Iryna Holoborodko, Katya Libkind, Valeriya Tarasenko and Stanislav Turina will show what they have been working on for almost seven years. It will be a presentation of their work with their comments.

After a short break, they will invite the audience to work together, maybe on books or maybe on postcards.

Or maybe together with the audience they will come up with a theme that would be interesting for everyone and will talk and draw around it?

We’ll see!

04.04.2025 (Friday) 12 – 1 pm

Discovering Taiwan Through Children’s Eyes: A Journey with Books & Animation*

Through Picture Books, Animation and Knot Tying — Opening a Door to celebrate Taiwan Children’s Day

On the occasion of Taiwan Children’s Day (April 4), we would invite children to explore Taiwanese culture through interactive activities — combining animation, picture book reading, and Taiwan traditional craft — to create a joyful and cross-cultural celebration.

Animation Screening: The Egret River

Recommender: Artist Chun-Tien Chen

Director: Liuacow

Film Introduction

This animation tells the story of a security guard who befriends an egret in a city where natural spaces are increasingly shrinking — prompting reflection on the human-nature relationship.

Picture Book Reading: T is for Taiwan

Author: Dr. Hui-Ling Huang

Illustrators: Wang Yilan, Ali, Huang Xuhui, Ju Zhi

Reading & Translation: Karolina Kodrzycka

Craft Workshop: Lucky Knot

children will learn to make the Ruyi Flower Knot, which resembles a lucky four-leaf clover and symbolizes blessings and good fortune.

At the end, children will be invited to pick some sweets from Taiwan and share their favorite part of the activity and exchange their “lucky blessings” with others.

05.04.2025 (Saturday) 12–1:45 pm

Food and Migration*

Workshop with Wu Mali 

This workshop is an extension of artist MaLi Wu’s work “The Taste of Empire.” The activity continues the spirit of the artwork by guiding participants to explore the connection between food and cultural history—centered on one of Taiwan’s most iconic everyday dishes: braised pork rice (Lu Rou Fan).

Participants will taste Lu Rou Fan and learn about the cultural and historical context behind this humble but beloved dish. Participants will be invited to share their stories connected with the food by drawing and writing the dish which related to home taste on the cards prepared by artist.

The cards created during the event will become a part of the exhibition “Common Landscape / Greeting a Stranger”.

05.04.2025 (Saturday) 2 – 4 pm

Common Landscape/Greeting a Stranger

A meeting with those involved in the exhibition, the curatorial team and invited researchers dedicated to the vision of the future. It is a type of research, taking place through conversation/discussion, the subject of which is artistic practice.

Speakers: NienTing Chen [TW], MaLi Wu [TW], Kinga Lendeczki [HR], Vladimir Us [MD], Stanislav Turina [UA]

Event will be held in English with the translation to Polish

06.04.2025 (Sunday) 12:00 – 16:00

Nomadic Cheese*

Workshop with Stanislaw Turina

This is a workshop on making cheese and making a unique sculpture, because in Central Asia, cheese and sculpture are sometimes one and the same thing

This cheese and sculpture is also a product of the millennia-old nomadic lifestyle of the peoples of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan

This highly practical workshop takes us from milk to cheese, past other dishes: kaimyk, katyk, suzma and finally to the goal – a cheese called kurt

Our meeting will include talks about cuisines, cheeses of the world, and cheese sculptures that are so popular in different cultures

We will also have the opportunity to taste kaimak, katyk, suzma and kurt

And the result of the meeting will be your unique sculpture, that’s for sure

See you at the meeting

08.04.2025 (Tuesday) 12:00 – 18:00

Under one leaking roof* 

Workshop and film screening with Vladimir Us

The workshop will start from a practical activity, during which the participants will be invited to describe whether a Kitchen-Canteen for the cultural workers (presented at the exhibition) could operate as an autonomous functional model of a cultural space (aka house of culture), being embedded both into the local and the international context.

The questions to discuss:

– who will be the members of our community?

– what will be our cultural profile and which activities will we host?

– how will we organize and what economic model will we choose?

– what will be our governance model?

– what values will we adhere to and which principles of functioning will we have?

– internal regulations and the code of conduct

After a shared lunch the participants will be invited for the screening of a short documentary film by Cristian Dorofte «Under One Leaking Roof» – the film invites for a reflection on the precarious conditions (metaphorically illustrated by the “hole in the roof”) in which the residents of Casa Zemstvei – an independent cultural center from Chisinau operate, how they try to self-organize, choose and make use of tactics to make themselves audible/visible, trying to develop an artistic discourse anchored in social realities, alternative to the dominant discourse promoted by public state institutions and the private creative industries.

Based on the film screening, let’s have a discussion focused on the need for artistic autonomy while facing precarious conditions in which cultural workers from our region found themselves.

The questions to discuss:

– what local models for self-organization do we know?

– The question of precarity (what economic model should we adopt)

– The question of autonomy (how much autonomy do we need)

– how to self-organize with minimal resources and in a way in which the pressure and the responsibility will be more or less equally distributed among the members of the community?

09.04.2025 (Wednesday)

Workshop Audio Description (12:00 – 18:00)

Under the guidance of interns from the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, the participants will record their own audio descriptions of the works presented in the exhibition Common Landscape / Greeting a Stranger

10.04.2025 (Thursday) 4 pm

The landscape within us*

workshop with Kinga Lendeczki

The workshop will focus on the concept of the landscape and invite participants to explore the different layers of this concept. The image of a landscape is often constructed from an external power position and can easily be used for political aims. During the workshop, we will attempt to go beyond these constructed images and discover our landscape from an internal point of view. Tim Ingold’s idea about the landscape is that through living in it, we become a part of it and it becomes a part of us (Tim Ingold, The Temporality of the Landscape (1993), 154.). We will take this idea as a starting point, and through discussion, we will try to recall the landscape(s) we carry within us.

11.04.2025 (Friday), 4 pm

Curatorial tour with Yulia Kostereva

26.04.2025 (Saturday), 12 pm

Guided tour in Belarusian with Alina Wawrzeniuk

17.05.2025 (Saturday), 9 pm, Rynek Kościuszki (Kosciuszko Square)

Contemporary Art Days Festival 2025

Benas Šarka, performance Kiaurai / Through

The performance inspired by William Shakespeare’s King Lear, although it refers to classics of world literature, is thoroughly avant-garde. The Lithuanian artist boldly and sometimes even bravely combines elements of contemporary art, dance and fair theater in his performance.

24.05.2025 (Saturday), 6 pm.

Contemporary Art Days Festival 2025

Alex Freiheit & Aleksandra Słyż, performance GHSTING

For the past ten years, Alex Freiheit’s duo Siksa has been exploring feminist personal storytelling, the aesthetics of postmodern fairy tales and queer legends. In her new collaboration with Aleksandra Słyż, she reaches deep into the herstory of lying, coloring, drawing out the stench, stains, secretions, and shredded organs from the text as poet and vocalist.