Janusz Wrobel
In an act of seeing
Identifying all needs in my life, and ways of making sense, is a matter of my choice. The essential are in my every breath, water and food I need. An adult choice is to know the content of them, and how secure is their supply.
Supply relies on the interactions between two separate realms. The first is the one we all came from. The second is our collective interpretations of the first one, and our sensemaking. Can we ever buy, or win, the means of sustaining our living?
Project Introductions
Formatted for my Natural Disclosures website project closed last year.
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If life is an opportunity of choices, the beginning chances are its cornerstones. The only ones we know about are the unique properties of water molecules in the physical world. They assisted the bonding of matter, their outcome selection and protection, and gradual refining that led to our ability to understand it. The state of our consciousness, though, is what really does matter today.
On water's edge, I’m reflecting on what drives me and why. Or, about the living cells within my body, functionally aware of all others. Each self-contained unit of Life suspended in calm water, in harmony of unifying coexistence, purpose and connection.
If life is an opportunity of choices, the beginning ones are still being its cornerstones. The unique properties of water molecules in the physical world matters the most. They assisted the bonding of all molecules, then their selection outcome, protection, and gradual refinement. Like the content of our brains, and ability to comprehend. Our consciousness, though, is what matters today more than ever.
On water's edge, I’m wondering on what drives me and why. Or, about the living cells within my body, functionally aware of all others, each being a self-contained unit of Life suspended in calm water, in harmony of unifying coexistence, purpose and connections. I am asking myself. Why to rock the boat on rough waters being blind to the depth of water’s anger, and to the penalties for my reasoning?
I live within the networks of relationships defining my identity, as well as thoughts, behaviour and lifestyles. The workplaces exposed me to social structures' norms, subordinating me to their goals and metrics. That might spill over my personal life, where the web of relationships sprouts from different grounds, norms, and principles. Navigating, separating, and prioritizing them is a lifelong challenge for anyone.
A walk in the woods exposes me to intuitive references and primal archetypes of unconditional relationships. Trees are the embodiment of it. As the nature creations to redistribute, disperse and store our sun energy by facilitating water and carbon flows. And the air content by both state and phase changing. I can visualize the mycorrhizal fungi underground, connecting everything what above the ground with the incorruptible network of ultimate sharing.
Sometimes I feel lost, living between two split realms. The urban world offered all around escapes the mundane into fantasy grounds. Theatres, books, galleries, shopping, exotic trips, news, all engaging and rewarding. While the northern environments, I was passing by on my white-water canoe adventures, appeared unattractive. The endless stretches of scruffy, impenetrable plant life. Both worlds appeared to be oblivious to another, drifting into separation.
Once stranded by high water, I started paying attention to the web of relationships on the grounds. And I discovered my Petri dish of giant scale, assembling the essential founding blocks of both worlds. Worlds once to be as one. I saw in it a new garden of Eden, where science laws, once I learned but forgotten, were visibly practiced.
Landscape, as an art genre, was characterized as an objective image of a land, inviting viewers to populate it with their own stories. For decades now, it appears to be the range of their authors' visions, focused more on forms and styles than land itself. Historical works might still have the receptive audience. In photography, it is a free-for-all web marketplace of "landscaped" images of everywhere.
Year after year, I go out to embrace the spaces of history, meaning, and Life's tiresome work. Often just to contemplate echoes of friendships once forged there, swarms of insects and birds that vanished along old story lines. And my hopes of taking there my grandchildren to forge our own stories to endure.
All quiet on the nature's front, and the silence is deafening.
I use photography for its fusion of the credible documentary with its interpreting qualities. It forces me to cognitive discipline advancing each project. They linked by the apparent inabilities of our societies to find resolution mechanisms for the growing conflicts within. My starting point was an observation about the evident departure from the democratic principles of conflict resolution.
I investigated the state of these principles’ comprehension among a little section of urban population in the industrial city of Hamilton, Ontario. I documented changes in the urban setting of the past century, and the city transitioning difficulties of the post-industrial age. To assess the people’s stance, I invited them to interact with my work by writing their opinions on the work surface in open public settings. The outcome has documented the changes in the social consciousness.
Projects Overview
All projects overview. Formatted for desktop viewing as a PDFs. Best option; browser in presentation mode.
If reality is a persistent illusion, I choose it at any time over fictions or fantasies. Peeling one like an onion, being rewarded by own discoveries of hidden structures, draws me in. It is more practical, never boring. To gauge of what might be our common grounds.
It's my way of navigating the world of mounting, mutually excluding, contradictions. A world of growing consequences from what were supposed to be improvements in our lives. And the polarities of our views making conciliatory approach to problem solving less effective.
Encounters summarize my projects with underlying goal. As our social structures and relationships deteriorate, the meaningful contribution of cultural institution becomes quite indispensable. Co-operation of creative minds supports means and credibility any project’s relevance.
I stopped submission to exhibit my work for valid reasons. I am ready, though, to cooperate with artists or curators about exhibition projects with coherent vision, adequate visual material, space, and well-defined ideas about exhibiting and promoting it.
I have many artworks exhibitions ready, and ideas about multi-screen presentations support of relevant material.
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