Franek Wardyński: Reunification of the Motherland

About

The afterlife of a Stock photo is increasingly taking place in sales brochures from last year, the ones that were printed in twenty thousand copies and stored in boxes on floor minus four. What if the afterlife of a Stock photo was a spiritual reunification with its suggested origin, placing it back to the environment that it had the ambition to depict?

For his first solo exhibition in London, South Kiosk presents London-based artist Franek Wardyński’s intriguing intervention between rendered and real landscapes. The project embraces conventions of images employed in stock-footage, establishing the notion of natural looking imitations installed in actual locations. Reunification of the Motherland (2018) explores the particular moment of truth when a fake forest is reunited with a real one.

A short film and photographic series portray a stock footage banner forest on its pilgrimage back to reality. The artworks deal with the issue of life as a journey, recognition and the struggle of self. For Wardyński, ‘it is about liberating the forest montage, a bit like when you buy a turtle in the market and let it go because you want it to be free.’

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Franek Wardyński (b. 1989) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer based in London. Wardyński’s main focus is cultural criticism, themed around Archives for Future Memories, Cannibalism of Culture, Matters of Translation and Creative Survival. He explores these concepts through challenging the boundaries between craft, digital production, art and design, using a diverse range of media as well as printmaking, sculpture and performance.

Educated at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art, Wardyński founded his own studio in 2015. Specialising in designing narratives, his work incorporates research, visual creations and installation for museums, non-profit organisations, galleries, operas, educational institutions and publishers. He has, for instance, designed over twenty books, installed neons in a bar, created a digital platform for a school and designed visuals for an opera.

His work has been exhibited worldwide in galleries such as the Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong, //Galerie 102, Berlin, Art Dubai at Madinat Jumeirah, Art Safiental Biennale, Switzerland, Convex Warehouse, Kyoto, SW1 Gallery, London and TR Warszawa, Warsaw.