Tomasz Madajzcak 2020

Tomasz Madajczak
No Space
5 August to 30 September 2020

Whenever I think No Space, it creates an image of a place in my mind, in memory, in the foreseen future. Whenever I try to imagine what it might mean not to be in a physical place, I look around me, at the place where I am. When I think about subtracting I add a thought, a stream of thoughts, a mental space, a concept. There is the negative space, a space with its complementary shapes and forms, a place for the imagination to try to make sense from an absence.

No space
a question
a motion
a feeling
conversation
absence
silence
fall
infinity
no concept

Tomasz Madajczak and Micheal O’Connell are going to meet in the studio in Uillinn West Cork Art Centre via the internet for a week. Their interactions are questioning the relationship between physical and mental space, and a process of subtraction from an empty space. The conversations which are appearing during their meetings are being recorded and transcribed by a digital algorithm, they will create a margin outside of the entrance to the studio.

As a response to the Covid-19 situation I created an installation in my studio and invited number of people to respond to it. I worked remotely for a duration of three months, communicating and maintaining a dialogue with Micheal O’Connell who you know, Helle Kvamme from Sweden (our collaboration with Helle has benefited in an exhibition of collaborative works in Sweden in July and screening of a movie during B-7 International festival in Germany). I collaborated also with Silke Michels from Kerry, Inma Pavon and Mick O’Shea from Cork, as well as with Australian artist Pattie Beerens.

My residency in Ullinn is intending to maintain and allow for publicising of different forms of the artistic collaborative dialogues.

I made arrangements with MOOS and Terminal08 galleries in Poland to stream and to help showing and distributing information about the collaborative processes.

I made arrangements with different artists to take part in the dialogue during my residency in Uillinn.

The dates are as follows:

7th – 14th August – dialogue with Micheal O’Connell – NO SPACE
the dialogue will be based on the idea of subtracting. I will meet with Micheal every day via zoom. Our verbal dialogue will be translated onto text and will be placed outside of the studio, creating a visual frame – an entrance. Micheal’s idea is to meet in the studio and subtract our conversation from the space where they are going to happen. Conversations with Micheal are challenging and they often take unexpected turn. At the end of our one week dialogue Friday 14 August I would like to stream online the documentation and hopefully support it with a live interaction between me and Micheal. 

17th – 22nd  August – dialogue with Pattie Beerens – Australian artist
I have collaborated with Pattie during a project called “Mattering Happening” in Ballydehob on 31st of July 2020. I will create a sculpture in relation to earlier installations which were done by Pattie in Australia. The sculpture will hang in the middle of the studio in Uillinn accompanied by video documenting the shape and structure created simultaneously by Pattie in natural setting in Austria. Eventually I would like to create a video which will allow for both installations to merge creating new visual value, new space, another dimension, an outcome from our dialogue.

22nd – 29th – I would like to open the studio to visitors to visit the installation, to experience it, before it will be returned to the nature (all the materials used to create the sculpture are natural and the ephemeral nature of the sculpture is aiming to return it to its origin when its duration will be finished).
During the break of the 22nd – 29th I would like to ask dance artist to respond to the sculpture in the studio. On the 29th August I would like to stream the response live online.

Helle Kvamme – 31st August – 5th September
A continuation of our collaborative work which started in my studio. I would like to stream and show the outcome of our collaboration online on the 5th September.

Mick O’Shea and Irene Murphy
7th – 12th September – I would like to invite Mick and Irene to interact with the space which I will create in the studio. I will stream  the documentation online on the 12th September.

Silke Michels
12th – 19th September – continuation from collaboration in my own studio with screening and live streaming on the 19th of September.I created a film based on to camera performance performed by Silke MIchels in the sea. The film was shown (in form of a projection onto a wall in a crypt of cathedral in Dublin) as part of refugee week , a festival called “Imagine” in June 2020. We are working on a new film and further collaboration related to the material created during interactions in my studio.

Zainub Mavaz – prof. of art at a university in Pakistan
21st – 26th of September – I was introduced to Zainub by Hina Khan. ZAinub and me decided to collaborate through simultaneous meditative painting practice. Zainub is a painter, a prof. of art at a university in Pakistan and founder of self works a school of self development through art. It has turned out that our ways of thinking are strongly resonating and we feel a possibility to engage in a  collaborative painting practice. Although painting wasn’t my main medium of artistic articulation. I was willing to get back to painting for about 7 years now. After a zoom meeting and in depth conversation I decided to collaborate with prof. Zainub in a painting experiment. We are going to paint 5 large size canvases simultaneously in the studio in Ullinn and in Zainub’s studio in Pakistan. We will be streaming our brainstorming during the process as well as the documentation after the process will be completed.

Biography – Tomasz Madajczak

This project is supported by an Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon COVID-19 Crisis Response Award.

Image: No Space , Disturbed Ground – Uillinn West Cork Art Centre

Uillinn: West Cork Art Centre’s Residency Programme is supported by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and Cork County Council.