Joanna Rajkowska

Konya

Joanna Rajkowska (born 1968 in Bydgoszcz, Poland) is an author of objects, films, installations, ephemeral actions, as well as interventions in the public space. Her works reflect the changes in the reception and expectations towards art and its social functions, referring to the complexity of identity problems affecting the Eastern European countries after the economic and political transformation of the 90s. Rajkowska’s most widely discussed works: Pozdrowienia z Alej jerozolimskich/ Greetings from the Jerusalem Avenue  (2002-2009) and Dotleniacz/ Oxygenator (2006-2007) were functioning as contemporary “social sculptures”, activating layers of meanings (both historical and ideological), provoking conflicts, serving as specific platforms interwoven into the urban tissue of Warsaw, used for debates, arguments and manifestations. These works might be also considered as merely pretexts for discussion about the issues of land property and potential forms in which the collective memory might be manifested as public monuments. As Joanna Rajkowska’s works are materializing through “urban legends”, press-cuttings, gossips and media debates, their form is always “unfinished”, so there is possibility that they would evolve and mutate, without the artist’s initial intentions. www.rajkowska.com