Karolina Żyniewicz

2013

This project was a performance in the form of a 10-day living exhibition. It took place in a small private gallery, Miłość, in Toruń. The central point was examining the relationship between human and non-human living beings. Moreover, it was linked with the topic of irrational fears and the limits of sensual perception, which are rooted in culture. Miłość gallery was situated in a former flat and consists of three rooms. These rooms symbolize three areas of exploration and meaning. The key figures of this performance were insects. I intentionally chose the species associated with filth and danger: Madagascar cockroaches and Zophobas morio maggots. My constant presence in the gallery was an essential aspect of this project. I lived in one of the rooms, taking care of the insects and interacting with the audience. It resulted in a long-term relationship between the audience, insects, and me. The first room was an area for overcoming the grocery taboo and a place where a dinner at the opening took place (it was a part of the performance). Nonetheless, it was the second room that resembled a dining room. It was a clear, elegant chamber with a big table in the center. The table symbolized a meeting place. The last room was mine. It served as a research studio.
The exhibition took the form of a diary I used for ten days to collect au courant notes and to add them to my observations that were transferred from the artist’s private studio to the gallery space. The diary as a literary genre is etymologically derived from the Latin word diarium, which means daily nourishment or food portion. The diary as mine exhibition became essential in the quest for my own “cognitive phobias.” For obvious reasons, this process took the form of a publicized experience. The embedding of events in the body of the gallery involved constant presence, communion with insects and human beings, exposure to the view and confrontations, reporting, and collaboration with a culinary expert and a scientist (biologist). Its completion was accompanied by uncertainty and disintegration.