Joanna Pawlik
Performance of Stairs, 2019, Gdańsk
© Photo by: Joanna Pawlik
Performance of Stairs at Muzemu Sztuki, 2020
© Photo by: Joanna Pawlik
Performance of Stairs at Muzemu Sztuki
© Photo by: Joanna Pawlik
Black Pasta, exhibition view at CCA Kronika, Bytom
© Photo by: Joanna Pawlik
I wonder... directed by Joanna Pawlik
© Photo by: Joanna Pawlik
Film still: Threnody, HD, 2017
© Photo by: Joanna Pawlik
Joanna Pawlik lives and works in Krakow
She works with painting, drawing, photography, video, performance and directing.
Joanna Pawlik graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow (studies at the Faculty of Painting in 1994–1999, diploma in the studio of Prof. Leszek Misiak). In 2018, she obtained a PhD in visual arts at the Faculty of Arts at the Pedagogical University KEN in Krakow.
The starting point for Joanna Pawlik’s art is the intimate issue of her own impairment which is later expanded by including works by other artists into her exhibitions. In the case of Pawlik’s art, the process of creating the works is as important as their autonomous existence. Striking relationships, overcoming barriers, repeating improvised stories, and increasing the participation of disabled people in society lies at the core of Joanna Pawlik’s artistic practice. The artist wants to make a change and facilitate the authors’ coming out, which literally means coming out of the house. She describes how she had to face the “staring” when, after years of felling ashamed, she finally revealed her experience of disability by showing her personal artworks to the public.
Contact details
Joanna Pawlik
Artist
Krakow
Poland
Artistic Directors
Joanna Pawlik
Online
Email: https://www.joannapawlik.com/contact
Website: https://www.joannapawlik.com/bio
Stairs
Duration: Flexible
Description: Stairs is a series of on-camera performances started in 2013. The common denominator of recordings shot at different locations – staircases, parks, and even a mine – is the repeated image of the author climbing stairs on one leg.
For those with mobility issues, stairs constitute an obstacle in accessing public space.
Latest Video
On 14 and 15 November 2019 the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute showed the premiere performance of I wonder... by Joanna Pawlik,a part of the 4th edition of the "Placówka" program.
In the project the artist creates a polyphonic concert/performance, which is a recording of the numerous forms of oppression andexclusion, experienced by people with various disabilities in everyday life. Drawing on the many years of experience of her own physical disability and the creation in the field of visual arts,film, performance, and music, Joanna Pawlik invited artists with movement, speech, hearing, and sight impediments to participate in the project.
The script contains the artists' statements, but also fragments of their dreams, poems by Wiktor Okrój, as well as dialogues created during rehearsals together by all the participants. It is a kind of patchwork of personal expressions contrasted with statements bypoliticians. All of this in excellent, free jazz and punk rock arrangements, because music is equally important in this project aswords - it improvises on the topic of emotions which appear on stageby means of words.
The I wonder... title refers to the personal condition of aperson in the state of threat: disability, disease, and social exclusion. The creators of the project also take up topics connected with the political, economic and social situation of people withdifferent disabilities in Poland, making use of, among others, the experience of the protest of parents of disabled children in the Parliament in 2018.
Stairs is a series of on-camera performances started in 2013. The common denominator of recordings shot at different locations – staircases, parks, and even a mine – is the repeated image of the author climbing stairs on one leg.
For those with mobility issues, stairs constitute an obstacle in accessing public space. For the artist they are a symbol of hindrance as well as an object of fascination. Within this project Joanna Pawlik examines disabled bodies. In this series of films she documents attempts at an extreme task: climbing to the top with one leg.
Stairs is a series of on-camera performances started in 2013. The common denominator of recordings shot at different locations – staircases, parks, and even a mine – is the repeated image of the author climbing stairs on one leg.
For those with mobility issues, stairs constitute an obstacle in accessing public space. For the artist they are a symbol of hindrance as well as an object of fascination. Within this project Joanna Pawlik examines disabled bodies. In this series of films she documents attempts at an extreme task: climbing to the top with one leg.
