LICA FESTIVAL 2024






Dwell
Abandon
Occupy
Vacate
Remove
Settle
Escape
Stay
Diverge
Possess


ARCHITECTURE
DESIGN
FILM
FINE ART
THEATRE




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    Hanna Borzymowska 









    My studio practice stems from an aspiration of a sustainable, ecologically conscious sculptural practice. Considering humanity’s irrevocable link to our surroundings, my practice concerns itself with the hand working of different ordinary materials to think through the relationship we have with them. This first-hand sensory experience, prolonged by the repetitive making of older, laborious techniques, facilitates the development of a deeper understanding of the materials’ changing properties as they undergo the processes of cordage and/or nalbinding. 

    The sculpture gets its rounded shape from the twisting, weaving, and looping, but its column form comes from inquiry into material connections and contrasts. Accumulating knowledge of the properties of ordinary things like paper, plastic, metal, cotton, or plants, allows for negotiation between their abilities and limits, and my aims. Their vertical placement supports thinking through the associations they have with each other, their impacts on one another, and the remnants they leave, comparable to stratification levels in geology. However, different meanings can be drawn as to their connections, as the materials are in both contrast and conversation with each other, differing in aesthetic and practical properties. The column grows tall as materials compile and continue, each influencing the next one. The inefficient bygone techniques become counterintuitive to the grand sculpture — an unlikely, absurd combination. 

    In my practice I collaborate with materials in a constant negotiation between my aims and their more-than-human agency. Material limitations are visible throughout the sculpture, from the cut off ends of willow branches, to the bend in the looped metal section. I aim to also consider the lives of materials I work with before I got them. In the way which I’m accumulating understanding, and the sculpture is accumulating height, I think of the materials as collecting within them the experiences which can transform them from flimsy paper to a strong rope.