Architecture from the Inside/ Soviet wall unit 🗝️

photographs, video, archive, installation

Architecture from the Inside is a hybrid endeavour combining elements of a sociological study, a documentary project, and a performative action. The topic, location and protagonist of this work is the Słowacki residential estate in Lublin designed by Zofia and Oskar Hansen, the eminent post-war Polish modernists who searched for possibilities to bring to life the utopian assumptions of modernity in architecture and urban living. Several decades after the estate was built, the artist looks at its social and aesthetical condition. The results of her research, together with the records of accompanying emotions, have been presented by Gryka in the form of a series of photographs, a video, as well as notes and documents, organised into sophisticated, scenography-like spatial installations.

The Słowacki estate was erected in 1960-1975 and is considered to be one of the most interesting designs in late Polish urban residential modernism. The design was based on the Open Form theory created by Oskar Hansen, which emphasised the social dimension of art and architecture. Moreover, Hansen’s thought had a significant impact on Polish visual artists.

In 2018, Barbara Gryka started living in the estate. Shortly after, she started visiting her neighbours in their apartments. “I would talk to them about the blocks of flats designed by the Hansens, and about the changes taking place in the estate” − says the artist. Her point of reference consisted in the famous Sociological Record started by Zofia Rydet in 1970s, and consisting of portraits of people from all around Poland in their houses, taken by the photographer.

Gryka visited over 300 flats in the estate. “To finish the conversation, I proposed to the inhabitants to take a picture of me inside their apartment − reminisces the artist. − Contrary to Rydet, the flat owners themselves chose the part of their apartment that was going to serve as the backdrop for the picture, and they were also the ones who took the photographs. Next, if they consented, I took a photo of them in the same spot.”

This is how a series of diptychs was created − documenting the interiors with their interior design, decorations, as well as the modifications to Hansen’s architecture introduced by the dwellers. Moreover, and more importantly, the photographs document the encounters, conversations and new acquaintanceships.

Apart from pictures, Gryka took notes, made drawings, and prepared colour samplers including the colours present on the walls in the flats she visited. Many people who invited her into their homes also offered small gifts as a keepsake to remember the meeting. All these things form an extensive, multi-layer archive, reflecting the multi-dimensional social reality of the estate.

The artist recorded a vlog – it is the “keystone” connecting the materials created within the framework of this project − after every visit she recorded her impressions, talking about what she had just seen, whom she had met and what she had experienced when visiting her neighbours. The film provides an insight into the emotional dimension of the meetings and conversations.

The materials and artefacts gathered by Gryka are presented as spatial installations that change form for every exhibition, adjusted to the context of the shows and locations where the work is displayed. Sometimes, they consist of furniture and fragments of interiors, to help the viewers explore the archives in surroundings resembling the private space of a home. On other occasions, the artist makes reference to the modernist architecture of the estate, shaping her installations into forms similar to its architectural landscape.

Among the gifts that the artist received when carrying out her Architecture from the Inside project, there is this text written for her by hip-hop singers whom she met in the estate:

Half-silent moments and whispers of nature
when concrete was still not there
how many people remember that
from collective consciousness
Looking for childhood in the fog of remembrance
yet to how it should look it bears no resemblance
nobody asked us about our needs
they just came here and did what they pleased
while visions of people who grew in the estate
were treated as useless and thrown away
and urban planners had made up their minds
before even coming to look at the plans
the space in Słowackiego estate
adds +1000 points for those who create
I’m one of these who spent here many a year
recording the lore of our common experience here
we know something for sure in several spheres
but I mention just one to make it clear
three letters enclose seven districts, our turf
if the world is a sea, LSM* means windsurf…

Sinsen

*LSM – Lubelska Spółdzielnia Mieszkaniowa – Lublin Housing Cooperative

Text by Stach Szabłowski
Translation by Zofia Piętek
Hestia’s Artistic Journey, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (PL)
Pictures by Piotr Litwic

Dimensions: 280 x 60 h:220