The Gathering was an opportunity to meet artist Joanna Rajkowska and talk about the idea behind her new public art project for Erdington Soon Everything Will Change
Project launch: Saturday, 31 May 2014, 12-2pm
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Photo by Marcin Sz / Luthien Photography
Joanna Rajkowska
Erdington Library patio, Orphanage Rd, Birmingham, B24 9HP
31 May – 23 June 2014
Project launch: Saturday, 31 May 2014, 12-2pm
PEA presents Soon Everything Will Change by artist Joanna Rajkowska. Rajkowska is an internationally acclaimed artist based in London achieving recognition for her public art commissions. One of her recent works Forcing a Miracle has been displayed in London as part of Frieze Projects 2012. Soon Everything Will Change is her new temporary public project, conceived in Erdington, a district of Birmingham.
The core of the project is a large crystal formation installed in the patio near Erdington Library. Soon Everything Will Change comes from the notion of an impending crisis, with a strong unsettling sense of a change coming. Climate change proceeds alongside the melting of belief in the rationale of the Enlightenment legacy of European culture. The changes are and will continue happening globally and cross-culturally. What we need more than anything is a wonder, a supernatural phenomenon.
Soon Everything Will Change is not a public project thought of as a site-specific installation, but rather as a travelling, global device – a mobile chakra. Installed in the public space, it discreetly glows for everyone. Apart from the function intended by the artist, people will invent their own reason for its presence. Its ambiguous status as a ‘jewel’, healing object, street wonder and, above all, a sculpture questions the pragmatic definition of public art. It is an object that disarms, shifts our imagination and mesmerises our perception. And perhaps it really will become a chakra, a focus of energy for the district.
Rajkowska has undertaken several residencies and visits to Erdington, during which she has learnt about the specificity of the district in order to determine the concept and nature of the work. The whole process has been documented on our blog www.publicarterdington.wordpress.com.
The project will be opened with a performance by singers from the Waste Paper Opera Company and accompanied by The Alternative Guide to Erdington. The Alternative Guide to Erdington is an extension of the main project, comprising of a collection of stories that aims to reveal another face of this part of Birmingham. To complement the commission and residencies that form part of theproject, PEA is organising a series of events including an artist talk, a photo walk, workshops, and a mini seminar on public art.
Soon Everything Change is the part of Public Art Erdington, supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Birmingham City Council and Polish Cultural Institute in London.
Main media patron: Bham.pl
Soon Everything Will Change 