Contacts With Nature

PLAY/FLAY

about the exhibition “Contacts with Nature” by Jadwiga Sawicka and Krzysztof Maniak

Katarzyna Szaulińska

 Home alone. Alone in the forest. It smells like fun.

First off: I’ll make a pile of a thousand snail shells in the forest, which I won’t visit. This is just the first of a thousand ideas for playing with shells according to Krzysztof Maniak. Idea 467: “a rattling bear stuffed with a thousand snail shells.” Idea 786: “lie sick ‘in the presence’ of a thousand snail shells, believing that you’ll recover by looking at them.”

Okay, but what if I “killed the snail,” or all thousand of them?

THIS IS

NOT THE

WAY

Yes, of course, it’s better to restrain that part of your own nature that cuts down trees in the Białowieża Forest instead of digging a dog’s hole under their roots. When bombs are falling on houses in Ukraine and Gaza, the phrase “home alone” lands differently. When people are dying in the forests near the border, the phrase “alone in the forest” lands differently.

THE WAY

we kill

we die

And in the meantime we grow old, like those moldy lemons. I look at myself naked (still home alone) in the scarred, corporeal paintings of Jadwiga Sawicka. I wonder which tat I would get on my belly, which has wilted a bit after two pregnancies. Maybe “ebbs of enthusiasm?” But don’t overdo it with this vanitas. Something spicy around the genital area of the C-section scar, “SPIT on this FIRE,” twerk, shake that thang. Now we’re deep in it, and how. Let’s “find a tree stump your age” and comb the grass wearing pink wigs on our heads. Maybe then we’ll hold on to some beauty of a sun-drenched umbel. A non-aggressive curiosity, me – a mongrel poking all the holes.

But wait a minute, are we sure it’s non-aggressive? And what about playing with snail remains, shouldn’t we bury them instead (e.g. according to ideas 924–927?)? What if Krzysztof damaged some root while digging? And what does “alone in the forest” even mean? Aren’t all these non-human creatures major participants in the collusion/collision? What if the grass refused to be combed smoothly because it preferred braids?

Anthropocentrism level hard?

But how can we suddenly become sod-centric, perhaps in the next incarnation?

And does anyone here believe that play can really be innocent?

One day we’ll intertwine with the earth, Krzysztof Maniak, Jadwiga Sawicka, all those viewing this exhibition, and me too. Nettles or a highway will grow on us, empty shells will remain. Nature will consume us, grind us into something else, maybe potatoes, maybe tomatoes. It will remove separateness, the illusion of being alone. In the meantime, while we’re still alive, if we manage to get in touch with the companions of this existential situation, it can’t be done without a nibble.

Just to have a taste. Not to destroy.
 
 transl. Mark Tardi