Liliana Piskorska’s video art proposal Public Displays of Affection tackles the tremendous changes Poland has undergone in recent years.
“The deeply conservative new government has altered laws with shocking speed, bending democratic procedures in the process. In response, a wave of demonstra-tions has swept through Poland. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to reclaim the demonstration as a tool. I want to focus on the demonstration itself and on the moment of contact between demonstrations of opposing sides voicing their beliefs – on the absolute incomprehensibility of the languages they speak. And between the two, a body-armored police squad with any individual characteristics masked behind layers of metal, Kevlar, and thick plastic.”
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Collage 4, from the series Methods of camouflage in contemporary Poland[/caption]
For Forecast, Piskorska will use performance, video, and photography to process Poland’s current social phenomena in a subversive way. She is interested in cap-turing the gradually increasing tremor on the surface of public disquiet, forecas-ting the possibility of change.
Piskorska previously examined how the Polish right-wing appropriates national colors and symbols in Methods of Camouflage in Contemporary Poland (2016), a project which included videos, photography, and objects. She purchased and used patriotic items to test different ways of camouflaging herself in the city; an inver-sion of masking, her project was a visual manifestation where brightness and visibility are crucial.
Liliana Piskorska graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. Her works include sculptures, drawings, performances, and happenings. Learn more about her work at lilianapiskorska.com.
Photo: Liliana Piskorska (2016)