bio

Joanna Rajkowska (born 1968, lives and works in London, Berlin and Warsaw) is an author of objects, films, installations, ephemeral actions, as well as interventions in the public space. 
They can be treated as ironic contemporary variations of community-based art, land art, and so-called relational aesthetics, which the artist breaks down into constitutive elements, frequently applying the tactics of “participative observation”.

Her projects reflect the changes in the reception and expectations towards art and its social functions, referring to the complexity of identity problems affecting the Eastern European countries after the economic and political transformation of the 90s.

Rajkowska’s most widely discussed works, Pozdrowienia z Alej jerozolimskich/ Greetings from the Jerusalem Avenue  (2002-2009) and Dotleniacz/ Oxygenator (2006-2007), functioned as contemporary “social sculptures”, activating layers of meanings (both historical and ideological), provoking conflicts, serving as specific platforms interwoven into the urban tissue of Warsaw, used for debates, arguments and manifestations.

These works might be also considered as mere pretexts for discussion about the issues of land control and potential forms in which the collective memory might be manifested as public monuments. As Joanna Rajkowska’s works are materializing through “urban legends”, press-cuttings, gossip and media debates, their form is always “unfinished”, so there is a possibility they will evolve and mutate beyond the artist’s initial intentions.

Rajkowska received the "Paszport Polityki" award in 2007 and the Culture Foundation Grand Prize in 2010.

Sebastian Cichocki

bio