GARAGE SALE | ZRWR Collective | Poland
Garage Sale is the seventh event of an art project series ‘ROOMBOOK – exhibition in process’, which is being implemented by the artistic collective ZRWR, students and graduates of the Department of Arts of the Pedagogical University of Krakow, Poland. Willing to find ways to collaborate, about three years ago several students started to meet in one small room of the University, and completely transforming that space by covering every inch of wall and ceiling with sketches became their first project.
Since then, they have collaborated on six other projects, of which Garage Sale is the most recent. They describe their emphasis on the process, more than on the final product: “Our works are exhibitions in progress; the first step is to make the space where we operate part of the exhibition, by playing with it, modifying it and ‘annexing’ it to the work. The second aspect is relational: the artists are present and interact with the viewers in various ways, so that the viewers themselves become part of the works…”
Why the involvement of the viewers is so important in your works? “In our view, the work of art is a living thing, not an object that is made and then sits there as a finished product. As long as somebody among the artists, but also among the viewers/participants, has an idea, the work is alive.”
From July 22 through July 26th the group has moved Garage Sale to the Collegium Maximum’s underground garage at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, during the International Congress of Aesthetics, which is seeing the participation of more than 500 art theorists and philosophers from around the world. More than a Garage Sale, it is an exchange, or a bartering shop, where money is banned: “We will be offering everyday objects created or modified by us.
We won’t be taking money as a payment, but will exchange our items for items brought by those who will visit the shop.”
The participants to the conference are intrigued, they stop by, engage in conversation, try to find something to give in exchange for one of the pieces in the shop, and, in the words of the students, “they become part of the work.”
Participating Students
Konrad Peszko, Kamil Bas, Sylwia Bobel, Martyna Bednarz, Daniel Ziecina, Katarzyna Kwater, Katarzyna Jasinska, Joanna Rosiak
Professor / Curator
Halina Cader-Pawłowskam
