5:00pm “Traces” – opening of the photography exhibition of Georgia Nowak [PL/ENG]

Co-organizer: City Art Gallery

Venue: Bałucka Gallery | 2. Stary Rynek

The photographic works portrayed in Ślady [traces] represent two people intrinsically entwined through memory, blood and dress.  The parallel lives of family members, of stories told over generations and of different truths lived from Poland to Australia are depicted. History, trauma and time isn't static but continue to carry remnants, scars and gestures from past to future thus acting as a sign that biological processes never stop.

Artifacts, tropes, costumes, images and fragments collide to portray an ongoing and continued story over place and time.  At the center of this there lies proof that people prevail. 

Nowak imagined these works in memory of her grandmother, Tauba Gold [b: Lodz 1925, d: Melbourne 2010], and act as a dedication to the ever-present lineage and its ongoing traces.

In addition to this part, entitled “Golden shadows”, the exhibition will also include the second part – “Surviving Łódź”.

The subjects pictured in this series all carry stories of survival from Łódź, a city once densely populated by Jews yet dislodged from stability with the outbreak of the Second World War.

The city is a defining aspect of Survivors' stories and has been carried with them throughout the years. These pictures ask: Can a birthplace define you?

Memory, trauma and habits can be seen carried through time and through place from Lodz, Poland to Melbourne, Australia.  Object, colour, images, memorial come together in the respective homes, defining the home to be more than just a place of belongings but rather a symbol of collective memories and a stage for Polish-ness.

The homes of the Survivors are a diary of an era, their living rooms express a common-ness that is highly physical yet esoteric and intangible at the same time.  A translucent curtain can most commonly be seen as a backdrop, inadvertently separating the home and subject from the outside world and thus creating a sanctuary within, a place for lives to be lived and memories to be held.

Artist:

Georgia Nowak is an artist with a background in architecture. Often described as an astute thinker, the medium at which she works is secondary. Nowak’s work delves into the written word, essay film, photography and sculpture, and attempts to investigate often intangible narratives [ie. memory] in stark contrast to the tangible architectural form. A third generation descendant of Polish immigrants, Australian-based Nowak has directed her current photographic works towards exploring continuous generational links.

Nowak is currently teaching at the school of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and has numerous exhibitions and curatorial works running throughout 2019. 

The exhibition of Georgia Nowak is one of the voices of the third generation after the Holocaust, which co-create this year’s commemoration program. The artist’s grandmother – Tauba Gold – will receive during the commemorations a symbolic Memorial Tree in the Survivors’ Park.

Curator of the exhibition: Eliza Gaust