Reef edge

The exhibition creates a space for reflection on the relationships between humans, nature, and the world under conditions of growing uncertainty. 

The edge of a coral reef marks a liminal zone between two worlds: on one side, a realm teeming with life and vibrant presence; on the other, one descending into a terrifying abyss. It is a site of tension, where the experience of well-being and security is constantly confronted with feelings of unease. 

Bringing together four artists, the exhibition explores themes of fragility and precarious existence. Through textiles, sculptures, and paintings, the works interweave narratives of geopolitical threats, systems of power, and human activity. They evoke a reality in which an escalating sense of insecurity has become the constant backdrop of everyday life. Working across diverse media, the artists address a suspended state—a moment poised between endurance and collapse, hope and its disappearance. 

Maryna Tomaszewska's sculptural objects engage with the experience of uncertainty in an intensely physical way. The formal construction of her works is grounded in the tension between opposites: enduring ceramic forms—a material both fragile and perceived as timeless—and delicate, openwork textiles, vulnerable to disintegration. This juxtaposition establishes a powerful duality, heightening the sense of vulnerability while foregrounding the fragility of existence. The viewer's experience is shaped through the contrast between permanence and decay. 

In Alex Urban's paintings, nature no longer appears as a comforting presence but instead becomes a harbinger of inevitable change. The figures inhabiting her works oscillate between an attempt to reclaim a lost connection and the experience of estrangement. Nature no longer offers refuge; instead, it amplifies a growing sense of threat. 

Paweł Orłowski's sculpture, in turn, reveals nature's capacity to persist beyond human control, presenting an apocalyptic vision of the world. Humanity ceases to occupy the central position, replaced by a thistle emerging from the human body—a plant that evokes distance while embodying resilience, autonomy, and the capacity to take root under adverse conditions. In this new body of work, Orłowski presents, for the first time, a vision of a world governed by a disturbing new order, operating beyond the structures of the reality we know. 

Within this perspective, nature no longer appears as a sanctuary but as a force that exceeds human control. Similar dynamics shape mechanisms of domination that structure social relations. 

Tomasz Kulka's works examine the entanglement of human beings in the routines of everyday life. Drawing upon atavistic instincts, he points to the primal impulses that seem to underlie the transformation of the existing order into something increasingly destructive. 

Although Maryna Tomaszewska, Alex Urban, Paweł Orłowski, and Tomasz Kulka differ significantly in their aesthetic approaches, their works converge around a shared experience of living in a world that is overloaded and increasingly beyond control. 

The exhibition leaves the viewer at the threshold, in a state of suspension that resists immediate resolution and instead invites an acceptance of uncertainty. It is precisely within this liminal space—in opposition to the logic of neoliberalism—that the potential for a new way of thinking about relationships, interdependence, and coexistence in an increasingly destabilized world begins to emerge.