Giants
2022-2023
Sculptures. Plaster, old bedding, branches from Vitsula river.
~320 cm high each figure
Giants is a series of sculptures resembling human figures. Ten sculptures are made from old bed linen soaked in gypsum and fallen branches gathered from the ground along the Vistula River and the Polish-Belarusian border. These materials are intentionally chosen: the fabric, associated with sleep and the body, becomes a symbol of forgetting and liminality, while the branches act as a fragile, living structure that carries the imprint of the landscape.
The figures appear monumental, yet they are hollow inside — sarcophags of sorts, shells with no distinct image. They evoke the presence of a human being, a historical figure whose memory has gradually become blurred. The sculptures can be touched and interacted with, but inside they’re an empty space, ready to be filled. Over time, the sculptures begin to decay.
Over time, project it evolved into a personal statement on cultural memory and political disappearance — when one’s biography, origin, language, or experience becomes something uncomfortable, something easier to repress. The giants are forms into which any content can be placed. Their massive, yet fragile presence is already a statement. These sculptures are not portraits, but containers — in this sense, they act in opposition to the symbolism of the gravestone, which marks not only the presence of a person or group, but also guarantees that they will not return and will remain under the stone. Giants, on the contrary, refuse to be forgotten. They do not disappear entirely; they rise from the ground and from sleep, disturbing the boundary between past and present. Their emptiness does not signify absence, but the possibility of return and re-filling.
Over time, project it evolved into a personal statement on cultural memory and political disappearance — when one’s biography, origin, language, or experience becomes something uncomfortable, something easier to repress. The giants are forms into which any content can be placed. Their massive, yet fragile presence is already a statement. These sculptures are not portraits, but containers — in this sense, they act in opposition to the symbolism of the gravestone, which marks not only the presence of a person or group, but also guarantees that they will not return and will remain under the stone. Giants, on the contrary, refuse to be forgotten. They do not disappear entirely; they rise from the ground and from sleep, disturbing the boundary between past and present. Their emptiness does not signify absence, but the possibility of return and re-filling.
