Monika Zawadzki
Green Island
The vast mural by Monika Zawadzki depicts four black human figures, devoid of individual features, enlarged to supernatural dimensions, placed between two convergent lines – the four stages of human life: from standing and kneeling, through kneeling and bowing, to lying down.
Like in many of her other socially engaged works, Zawadzki, refers to the condition of the individual in the contemporary world. The piece can be a metaphor for a career, the price of which is often almost complete submission to the social system with its soulless ruthlessness that leads to the loss of individual dignity.
The title Green Island also references the then prime minister? Donald Tusk’s 2009 speech, which described Poland as one of the few countries that recorded a positive economic growth during the 2008-9 economic crisis. Has this “Green Island” become a dream come true for Poles?
Monika Zawadzki is a visual artist creating installations, sculptures, and videos. She graduated from the Faculty of Graphic Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and defended her doctorate at the same university. Currently she teaches at the Visual Communication Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Szczecin. Zawadzki is also interested in graphic design; she was the artistic director of “DIK Fagazine” and collaborated with “K MAG”, and works with various cultural institutions.
In her work, Zawadzki employs simplified and repetitive elements, sculptures modelled on pictograms and logotypes that resemble human or animal silhouettes devoid of individual features. Her areas of interest include anthropocentrism and the human species’ domination over other forms of life, as well as social exclusion and limitation of social rights resulting from a disproportionate access to material goods