CSM Blog – OLGA SZYNKARCZUK

I spent most of August preparing my exhibition Warstwy/Layers as part of Fringe Warsaw 2025. The space I was able to use was an amazing ex factort called Fabryka Norblina transformed into a high end mall with restaurants and a massive indoor exhibition space in the centre of Warsaw. When I saw the space initially it freaked me out as it was massive and I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to fill it up. It did however motivate me to work fast. I decided to create 20 pieces 70 x 100cm and 8 smaller pieces 50 x 70cm of dancers, who I met during a previous artists-Dancers-mothers group exhibition. I arranged daily sessions with models/dancers and decided I will draw using acrylic markers and oil pastels on layers of vellum. As I was working I was worried and doubting myself at times, thinking the work is not good enough, thinking that people will see through me and think it’s just a bunch of meaningless lines. I wanted to make it „special” because I felt the drawings I created did not take enough time to make, definitely less than paintings. I was scared people would see that so initially thought of adding a dance performance but ended up with a light show using rechargeable long Astera lamps suspended on fishing wire, which then lit the images from the inside an were programmed to stimulate a breathing heart. My husband and kids created a 3min beating heart/asmr/radiohead piece of music which worked in harmony with the light show. The thing I loved about this is getting the family involved and creating something together.

Although stressful, tedious and hard (I had to create the catalog/poster/invitations/all descriptions for the exhibition and arrange printing of the pdfs, without help from assistants, which I couldn’t afford) I felt very grateful for all the help from my family and kindness from people who allowed me to use the space for free, who rented the lamps for free and who rented the frames for my drawings. In the end everything turned out great and I was happy with the result.

The biggest surprise came when nobody bought anything. Almost 100 people came, praised the work, showed interest in collaborating with me on future projects, said loads of positive things about the work and how it made them feel but all I could think about was: „why is nobody buying? What did I do wrong?”

I had a chat with my therapist about it and tried to understand why does money matter so much to me. I am trying to tell myself that the collaborations that were the result of this exhibition and which will take place in the next 2 – 6months are more meaningful. That the workshop, which took place the day after the opening, organised for psychiatric ward patients, who came to see my exhibition as part of their workshop is so much more meaningful than selling work. Yet somehow deep down there is that feeling of „my work is worth nothing if it doesn’t sell” and „what is wrong with my work? Should i do painting instead? What would sell better?”

I feel that constantly thinking about money and sales is a huge trap but somehow I can’t shake off that feeling.

I also realise it is really hard to be an artist when you don’t have complete financial back up behind you. I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, have a mortgage, two kids with lots of after school clubs, a car to drive them to those clubs and in this situation single income of my freelance violinist husband

I feel frustrated with myself for not being able to enjoy the experience of exhibiting. I feel I worked really hard and the result is 30 pieces of useless junk, which will just take up space in my parents or my home and I honestly just want to give it all away and start over.

I remember when I first got back into drawing right before and after covid and how much joy I had from doing it. I remember how exciting and enjoyable it was, how quickly the time passed when I was drawing. I worry that trying to make it into business is killing the joy of making it.

I remember half of my first big show two years ago selling out. I remember half of the work from Leytonstone Arts Trail in July selling out. I keep asking myself: what could I have done differently this time around? And: why can’t I enjoy this experience?

POSTPARTUM MONUMENT

Looking at the reveal of postpartum mother monument at Serpentine

@rayvenndclark_art the sculptural representation of postpartum mother, encapsulating something so extremely important yet practically invisible in terms of representation in the art world. I simultaneously talk to lots of gen Z 20somethings, especially women, who easily admit they would never want to bring a child into the world we live in today. Where on one hand I completely understand and partially agree, the other side of me fears for the future of our species. I feel that we need to pay the postpartum mothers the recognition, respect and praise they deserve, we need to put them on the pedestal equal if not bigger than the one of “founding fathers” as none of us would be here if it wasn’t for their decision to being us into the world despite obstacles (when I was born, my mum was 21 and dad 24, they were very poor and lived in a studio flat with my grandma, who slept on a foldable camping bed in the kitchen). Nobody talks about how much sacrifice comes with becoming a mother. Especially for those, who live abroad and have no support system other than paid childcare.

“I have learned a great deal about not only the capabilities of women’s bodies but also the physical, emotional and psychological changes that occur well into the fourth trimester,” she explains. “I felt it was essential that the artwork served as a moment of education for the wider public, as we all have mothers who have had similar experiences and this deserves recognition.” SOURCE: https://broadsheet.com/london/articles/postpartum-sculpture-rayvenn-dclark

As recently as 2021, an Art UK Sculpture survey found that of the roughly 1500 monuments in London, 20.5 per cent were dedicated to named men but only four per cent to named women. D’Clark adds that “there is a shocking lack of sculptures across the city that are dedicated to women of colour. There are more statues of men named John than of all named women combined.” Her aim is to work towards redressing that balance, creating a public artwork that women and people of colour will see themselves reflected in. SOURCE: https://broadsheet.com/london/articles/postpartum-sculpture-rayvenn-dclark

Mother Vérité by Rayvenn D’Clark was commissioned by Chelsea Hirschhorn, founder of baby and parenting brand Frida. It was unveiled on October 9 at Portman Square Garden W1H, where it will be on display until October 21, before touring.

NORBLIN – CHILDREN- EMOTIONAL

I was sitting waiting for a meeting about a potential new project to start and suddenly a group of special-needs children with careers showed up in buggies and everything I’m doing with my life suddenly felt so small and meaningless in comparison. I felt so grateful my kids are “healthy” and equally so guilty that I dare to think this way. I wondered: is there anything I can do with my art that could have any meaning for these children, anything that could make their lives more fun, make them more noticeable? Maybe it was just my ego trying to make itself feel better I asked myself. What could I do with this feeling my emotional reaction should I just ignore it or put it into creating something meaningful? I then had my meeting and with the children and their carers at the back of my head thought of electronic waste like fridge doors and other emlements paper sculpture installations in a park or a forest for kids to create on that could then result in a traveling exhibition showing the work that had both educational and ecological meaning. It could be taken in big trucks around Poland, like the travelling gallery that comes to the people rather than expecting the “chosen ones” to come, buy tickets and enter the sometimes scary and overwhelming gallery environment. Then I also thought what will that do for them? Is it going to make their lives any better? Does Art have the capacity to make someone’s life better?

CONVERSATION WITH A FRIEND – EMOTIONAL

My friend‘s dad passed away recently after a long long condition and she was lucky enough to be able to spend the final months with him after a lung transplant, which wasn’t successful when she talked about being with him I felt empathy, but wasn’t emotional and then she mentioned her mom who has been divorced from her dad for 20 years and mentioned how extremely helpful she was to take care of The grandchildren while my friend spent those last days at the hospital with her dad all very normal I thought, but then she said this sentence at the end even my mom couldn’t stand it so she came to the hospital, sat next to his bed and held his hand that sentence listening to it brought me to a complete meltdown. There’s something both extremely sad, but also beautiful that after so many years of separation and barely any contact someone can still have so much kindness for a person they spend so many years with It’s more profound in my opinion than the same situation between people who have been together their whole lives maybe I thought about my parents and how they’re getting older and my dad being by himself and having only me as his second wife and his parents and his brother all passed away in the last 10 years and maybe that made me wonder whether my mom Would come and sit by his bed if he was dying in a hospital made me think of love and connection and how my dad even after so many years often says my mom was the love of his life, but my mom is with my stepdad now and I wonder if she still feels any sort of connection with my dad.

FEAR OF EXTREMISM AND RADICALISATION – WARSAW FILM FESTIVAL

“Anniversary” by Jan Komasa

“One Battle after Another” Paul Thomas Anderson

So anniversary not the best movie I’ve seen in terms of interesting storytelling a bit obvious great acting, great pictures beautifully lit and great details but just a little bit too simple I think, but at the same time I did feel quite shaken by it, knowing what the political climate in the US is like right now in 2025 with the right wing extremist turning the US upside down so watching this film makes trying to be ignorant of what’s happening in the world really hard I chose to be ignorant for quite a few years of my life while I was working because I was just it was everything was too much knowing too much made it very difficult for me to function in the family to be there for my kids every day Smiling and positive so I chose ignorance and watching nice things most of the time but now when I finally have a break from thinking about money and work and trying to focus on my art, I am starting to think it will be become increasingly difficult for me to be ignorant. I feel like being an artist is about saying something anything as long as we choose to be artist, we have to stand up to the increasing amount of brainwashing, which is so extremely dangerous. It’s the veiled extermination of kindness that we as artists should resist. I definitely liked the more complex and emotionally deeper approach of Paul Thomas Anderson in “One Battle after Another”, with its moments of southpark-like humour and surreal madness to lighten up the gravity of the situation. But the overall weekend spent watching movies like this makes me really worry and feel fearful about the future of humanity

“Anniversary” Jan Komasa “One Battle After Another” Paul Thomas Anderson

I THOUGHT DANCERS DIDN’T HAVE CHILDREN EXHIBITION OPENING

The reason I went to Warsaw this weekend was to be present during a joint exhibition created in collaboration with mothers dancers and their daughters. My mom‘s friend wanted to repeat a photo, which she took 20 years ago of a friend who was a prima ballerina of the Teatr Wielki – the most famous Polish Theatre, with her five year-old daughter as they were playing together on a massive wicker chair. That friend, 20 years later asked my mom to repeat that photo keeping in mind that when she got when she first got pregnant, a family member reacted to the news: “Oh I thought dancers didn’t have children”. That dancer had 2 children, quit ballet and started her own modern dance company and foundation, cialo/umysl, which has been organising dance festivals for the last 20 years in Warsaw. The question lingered on in the dancers mind for the next 20 years so the project grew into a collaboration with seven dancers who are all mothers and some of them continue dancing some of them decided to finish their careers and some of the daughters decided to not follow into their mom‘s footsteps. When I found out about this exhibition I felt immediate urge to become part of the project because there’s something about drawing movement that fascinates me, especially dancers and how much they can express through movement. I also feel deeply connected to the story of artists who became mothers, as it is my story, so I absolutely had to be part of this project. My mothers part of the exhibition has six 1,5 x 3 m photographs of mothers with children dancing while lying down on the floor. I was supposed to draw those dancers while they were posing, but my mom‘s back went out and I had to climb a 5 m tall platform to then take the photos of the dancers with their daughters. I then decided to meet with all the dancers individually and draw them while they were moving freely, dancing, stretching, relaxing, and I documented that process on video and my editor/mother friend edited it. It became a 2m x 4m projection onto a black wall where you could only see my arm drawing in white charcoal on black paper as well as some still images of finished pieces incorporated in between the films of my moving hand. Betweeen those we inserted images of my hand writing, in white charcoal on black paper, a manifesto that was created by the Fouder of this exhibition, my mums dancer friend, to describe the feelings connected to the often untold and unnoticed story of a mother artist dancer, and her struggle and strength in overcoming postpartum. The photos and projection were accompanied by interviews with the dancers and their daughters, with me an my mum, which were edited and shown on three TV screens throughout the exhibition. I am sort of starting to see this connection between what the project I was really involved in for the last six months, often getting very emotional crying, just talking to the dancers about their experiences, and thinking of my own experiences is an artist, mother, the connection with the feeling I have when I see the bronze sculpture Mother Verite of the postpartum Mother. I’ve been also analyzing this whole situation in my therapy sessions and talking about how it is an invisibility of the postpartum mothers that probably makes them feel emotionally exhausted. It makes the experience that’s already very difficult even harder I think, hiding it, pretending it doesn’t exist. It deepens the problems that happen in that very delicate period of their lives and they are the most vulnerable and equally they need to be the strongest. I think something I would like to talk about in my practice is the power of talking about vulnerability and the importance of experiences of the different stages of motherhood.

Water in my life

I was reading about Alexandra Shorey’s experiences with fire in her childhood and during her life later. It made me think about my relationship with water. My mum never learnt to swim because her dad was forcing her so aggresively and criticising her that she remained terrified of the water for the rest of her life. So her life goal was for me to be a good swimmer. When I was 7 I started a primary sports school in post communist Poland in 1989. It was mandatory to swim 3x a week in an olympic size pool and there were no „gentle slow, get used to the water” methods back then. You were thrown in the 2m deep water where you couldn’t touch the bottom and were expected to just know how to swim. You were not taught to take in air so when I first tried I drank loads of water and started choking and drowning. My mum was watching and she alarmed the coach. He just stuck that long lifeguard pole in the water and I climbed up that thing very quickly „like a monkey, it was hillarious” my mum keeps repeating her version of the story. I eventually learned how to swim and actually really love water, I love snorkling and tried diving, I became a synchronized swimmer and swimming is still one of my favorite sports. Yet somehow every once in a while I have these repetitive dreams of a giant tsunami wave, coming to the place I’m at, usually with my close family, on a beach on holiday but sometimes in a city, in a place where I live. And there is that great fear as I watch the waves approaching and they keep getting bigger and taking up more and more land and even though I keep climbing higher and higher or running further away from them I keep having that feeling that there is nothing that can be done, that we just need to give up and it will cover us completely, yet somehow in most of these dreams, when I end up being covered by the water, I realise I can breathe underwater and I tell myself that all I need to do is just sit and breathe calmly and once the water is gone I will be fine. So I guess I am trying to understand what does that water represent, it’s both traumatic and scary, it reminds me of being put in situations where I was too young emotionally to “deal with” these difficult situations, like the fear of drowning, like my parents divorce, like nobody talking to me, like watching my dad crying after my mum left him for my stepdad. I also remember one more situation, when I was 15, on holidays in Spain with my mum and stepdad. I was a raging vegetarian at that stage and got mad at my stepbrother for making fun of me in a restaurant, eating a seafood paella and waving the little dead prawn heads at me. I stormed out of the restaurant and started walking along the rocks, which were being hit by the waves. My stepdad was walking behind me taking photos of me walking. Suddenly a giant wave came and it threw me on the rocks and then pulled me into the water. As it went away I managed to sit down but then another wave came and pulled me deeper into the sea and then threw my body against very sharp rocks. The third wave came and I was barely holding onto the rocks with my fingers hanging off. It was then my stepdad noticed I was actually in trouble, dropped the camera, pulled me up and helped me to come out of the water. My dress was ripped and I had a lot of minor cuts so was bleeding quite a lot. But I actually remember laughing that I looked like Tarzan, while my mum was panicking and booking return flights to Poland. I don’t remember much more other than my family not really huggin me or consoling but mostly laughing or panicking. So maybe that has something to do with the recurring water dreams and maybe that’s something I should think about when working on my next pieces? I’m also an Aquarius and like to think there is some sort of connection as well.

SHAPING YOUR WORKSHOP WITH ADAM RAMEJKIS

Workshops 1-2 December 2025 at Two Temple Place, Exhibition Jan-March 2026

I found Adam’s post on Moodle and decided to spontaneously sign up after seeing the initial sentence-invitation: “Are you interested in facilitating your own workshop, around themes related to vulnerability, resilience, identity, and emotional well-being?” as well as “Join this session to think through your ideas in a supportive group setting. We will shape a workshop structure together and write a title and description for your session. You will then have a chance to put your ideas into practice at a planned public facing workshop festival”

The first thing that I found very intriguing was the space itself. It was absolutely over-the-top magnificently decadent. I felt like I was on a Bridgerton or Harry Potter movie set. And I was even more surprised to find out we will have the tour of the building before even starting the meeting. Turns out it was all connected. The place was built on a lavish scale by an american property mogul Waldorf Astor in the 19th century. He owned half of Manhattan and his family got death threats in the US, so he fled to London, but here they didn’t accept him as to them he was the new money American, so he sunk 100000000 US dollars, paying it all to a 70 year old architect for designing this “sanctuary” full of hidden doors with locks and with rooms protecting his wealth like vaults. Apparently he was also a philanthropist, but I feel like that’s probably a smaller part of his fortune. Now the space is rented to film companies as well as different galas and events and also has yearly exhibitions and workshops with artists. The artists have to “challenge the space,” considering that the sourcing of wood (mahogany, ebony) and the marble and craftspeople he hired, whose names we’ll never know, none of that was necessarily ethical. Plus, it used to be like some secret club, no one had access, and suddenly it’s open to the public and we’re even encouraged to touch the wooden interiors. We’re supposed to be running workshops there in December and have an exhibition from January to April. The exhibition will touch on the subjects of Resilience & Struggle with physical and mental health, asking questions such as: How do you deal with suffering? Is it human to suffer, how do we deal with that, what do we do? Ultimately we want to be forstering hope. The exhibition will have 4 sections:

1. The Weight of the Everyday

2. Collective Struggles

3. Human Vulnerability

4. Sanctuary and Solitude

The way I would like to participate is start with the drawing/dancing/music listening workshop, during which visitors could somehow experience what it would be like to dance with a pregnant belly hanging from you in the front. I want to collaborate with a dancer, who became a mother and I would like her to somehow through dance convey what the experience felt/feels like for her. Was she able to keep dancing? Did she have to quit? Was it a lot of suffering having to give up her career, feeling excluded by a dance company, having to build a completely new life? I remember becoming a mother felt like becoming completely invisible and it was very hard to deal with that for a while. I would like the viewers to possibly feel a bit uncomfortable when faced with this struggle. Maybe I would invite them to reflect and use available paper to draw with pain sticks, to express how they’re feeling, maybe they might be moved to dance as well. I am also thinking of including my work from the Fringe Warsaw exhibition but potentially destroying with water and transforming the flat paper drawings into more sculptural forms, rounded, embracing the circle as corresponding to the female form, but still with movement as part of the process, adding ribbons and thread to be able to suspend the structure in the air? For now I have loads of questions and idas and I am super excited about this. And still in absolut awe of the space

THOUGHTS AFTER FRIEZE 2025

Thoughts: I’m trying to see everything and make up my mind about any of the art feels impossible.

I was totally overwhelmed by the amount of galleries work some of it good some of the great and some of it very mediocre a few things that stuck in my head Morteza Pourhosseini “Pale Vision” triptych at Dusan Gallery was one of the first things I saw beautifully, detailed and ethereal the Adam and Eve skinned to grays with rocks and plant. The only thing connecting three people separated through the triptych.

Idris Khan “After the setting Sun” at Cristea Roberts gallery because it is printed on thick acrylic panels so the layers correspond to my Layers exhibition, as well as to my framing technique that combined 2 layers of plexiglass with aluminum from my Nago(Naked) Exhibit 2 years ago. The abstract print was also made of musical notes which I was drawn to as my husband is a violinist and Music has always been a big part of my life.

Xin Liu from Public London created abstract expressionist plant-like shapes on wooden panels with silk thread and layers of beeswax creating a sort of beautiful ethereal plant world which reminded me of Silk thread portraits by Rei Inaba, which I saw in Tokyo in January this year. Liu’s pieces made me think of my paper lamps sculpture, which I decided to hang up using ribbons and threads in rainbow colors. I’m thinking of wax pouring as well to keep the piece together but not sure how the vellum will hande this. I was also quite mesmerised by the water//oil sculpture which I found very calming and meditative.

Arianna Contino and Alex Hernandez at El Apartamento showed incredibly layered, handcut paper pieces, framed in deep white frames, which had so much detail, depth and intricacy one could stare at it for hours and get lost and relaxed at the same time. The fact they were these paper gardens I found quite incredible as well brought to mind Polish folklore cutouts from very colorful papers layered on top of one another of roosters, flowers and other nature inspired things.

IDEA: I had this idea about duality paper, cut out mirrored, but in a different color.

Another thing I really loved was Grayson Perry at Victoria Miro: the neon the mix of patterns, the intricate tapestry details, the size!

And last but not least DO HO SUH at Lehmann Maupin, whose Tate Modern exhibition I haven’t managed to check out yet. Again mesmerised by the technique, the magical use of colours, the wires threads, rainbow colors, detangling, falling apart and fragility vision of everyday objects. The mastery of the technique: how did he do it?!?

IDEA: On my new painting and stitching to the stripes leave loose ends hanging off.

I was mesmerized by the technique and by the colors as well as by the ombre effects of the colours seeping through one another, by the combination and something that looks like it was about to completely fall apart, somehow staying together. It was the juxtaposition of the delicacy of the threads and the lightness with heavy objects that we subconciously imagine being hard, cold, rough, durable. Radiator, Fire extinguisher, Doors with Handles and the sheer organza bathroom, including toilet, sink all the details that bathroom would have but in these very delicate see-through chiffon or organza materials and wires I really don’t know what it means. It’s the juxtaposition that was absolutely mesmerizing to me.

I keep thinking about the things I liked and about my own work and how it all kinda resonates, even with what my kids do. There is that need for playfulness, colour and exploring chaos and movement using a lot of entangles lines. That’s what I’ve been doing with my work, when I first contemplated drawing my kids while dancing their Chantraine technique dance and exhibiting that at the Chanytraine Dance festival. I used acrylic markers which are very different from crayons and charcoal I’m normally used to. I like how little control I have when I use them with my left hand and the dancing bodies become distorted an chaotic. At the same time the expression of movement feels more real. Like there is harmomy in chaos. I have tried photographing them and putting them alongside my son’s most recent piece as I feel there is a connection, between Do Ho Suh, my kids, and my work. I think what I am trying to get to is that feeling I had when I was a kid and I was drawing, that complete and utter joy and immersion in the act of creating, the feeling of time not existing, trying to get back to “The beginning of Time” as my son beautifully captured it with words when naming his piece. Another thought, while running today: it’s as if it’s all about to “unravel, fall apart, blow up in your face” is how I feel whe I look at DO HO SUH stuff, and some of my stuff countinues to circle around the idea of complete chaos and madness and yet the final result somehow brings out the feeling of harmony.

ILLUMINATED DRAWINGS, LIGHTS, MOVEMENT, ROBOTS, TECHNOLOGY

As I was exiting Frieze London, I was caught by the movement work of Korean artist Byungjun Kwon, who “develops robotic and audio hardware to channel collective experience through technology. Kwon’s Blossoming from the Center; The Golden Flower of Potentiality (2024) comprises purpose-built robots acting as avatars for otherness. Inspired by Korean shamanic dance traditions, through their seeemingly inexhaustible performance, the robots seek connectin with their human counterparts entering and exiting the fair.”

I thought this installation looked cheap and made in haste and chaotic, the cheap silver same as tinsel I use at my kids bday parties. But then another thing that came to my mind yesterday night, feeling like I might be going a bit mad, but I was thinking how amazing it would be to expand on my Fringe Warsaw ehxibition Layers, by making it into an interactive indoor or outdoor piece, including movement, sound and lighting. I imagined combining two pieces, which are already framed in aluminum, layers of vellum inserted between glass and plexi so they could be lit from the insinde. When combined I would place a double sided LED mat in the middle, and potentially hang the whole thing from the ceiling. I would place it on a stand/easel, single leg, which would be turning around using a mechanism placed on the floor. I wonder if it could be a wind up mechanism where viewers could wind it up themselves? I was thinking about Miro’s sculptures I saw at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, the “Niki de Saint Phalle & Jean Tinguely. Myths & Machines” with all these amazing moving objects and mechanical elements combined with roundness and curves and rainbow coloured female forms as well as roots and other nature elements. The roots reminded me of my great grandmother’s country house, which was filled with cande holders made from roots and polypore, a beautiful sustainable way of combining nature with functionality.

GEN Z REFUSING TO HAVE CHILDREN – EMOTIONAL, RESEARCH

To have or not to have? Children

Another thing I just thought about, on the parenting front, is that I know loads of 20somethings who are absolutely against having children, seeing how hard it is, how much struggle it takes to make it work. And it’s quite strange to think that people in some countries might stop having kids altogether????at the same time there are way too many people in the world hence we’ve got that duality here again. But I feel like exploring the idea of what it means to be a family and that maybe having kids is not the worst thing in the world…I don’t know, just throwing it out there

Because on that note I was just thinking about these Gen Z 20somethings and their decisions to not have kids and the main reason being that they’re just traumatized by the situation in the world: poverty, starvation, ecological crisis, all of that is afecting them mentally to the point of not wanting to bring another generation into this fucked up world. And I think that might be another thing worth adding. I’m in very close contact with a GEN Z girl, who lost her ndad tragically at 15 and her and her mum were left with loads of debt and are currently struggling financially. She is going through all this stuff at the moment believing whe will ever want to have children and I believe I could definitely find more people like that in London and in the UK and Europe in general, but that would probably require some serious research. Might need a research grant for that.

IDEA – LAYERS EXHIBITION CONTINUATION, MAKING A PAPER SCULPTURE/LAMP FROM VELLUM

I’m exploring the idea of making something I’ve never done before and failing in the process as well as making something new from art pieces that didn’t sell therefore I consider them a failure. I am on the journey of destroying the pieces and making a new paper sculpture/functional form out of them. I have no idea where this process will take me…

WORKSHOP TITLE: Reclaiming Grace: Ballet, Motherhood, and Resilience

This workshop brings together ballet dancers who are also mothers, exploring their lived experiences of rejection, resilience, and transformation within a discipline that often demands perfection and denies vulnerability. Many professional dancers face exclusion from the ballet community after becoming mothers—whether through loss of roles, lack of institutional support, or the persistent stigma around the maternal body. This exclusion not only disrupts their careers but also profoundly affects their mental health, particularly during the fragile period of postpartum recovery. Feelings of invisibility, shame, and displacement frequently intertwine with the physical challenges of returning to dance.

Reclaiming Grace aims to create a space for empathy, visibility, and dialogue through movement, music and drawing. The session will include live, improvised performance by dancer-mother and a violinist, open drawing session of movement by participants, and a collaborative movement workshop inviting the audience to engage physically and emotionally with the dancers’ stories. Through these embodied interactions, the workshop will reveal the strength and sensitivity of maternal bodies and question the rigid ideals of beauty and endurance that dominate ballet.

By witnessing, drawing, and moving together, participants will contribute to a collective act of recognition—fostering hope, solidarity, and a call for change within the ballet world. This workshop seeks not only to make the struggle of dancer-mothers visible but also to affirm their resilience and rightful place within the artistic community.

Collaboration with: Lara Turk – ballerina of Roya Opera in Covent Garden, mother of 3, Jan Regulski – Violinist, 20 years experience with Philharmonia in London

Place: Two Temple Place

Space: Dark room with wooden floors, to allow dancer to move in point shoes, speaker with voiceover to tell the dancers story in her own words, in her own voice, live music violin to allow her to feel like in the stage environment she is used to being in, projection of a recording: white lines on black background, hand drawing the dancer while she is moving and that then in turn projected onto the moving dancer to create a feeling of constant movement. Paper – vellum hanging around for the audience to participate and draw the dancer while she is moving, to try and capture movement and therefore create a feeling of discomfort as they will not be able to capture her in a still pose. ALso available heavy sacks to be hung on suspenders and an opportunity to repeat the dancers moves but with the additional “weight of motherhood” and in the end possibility to hang the finished drawings behind one another to mock the layered complexity of a life of a mother-dancer-artist.

Possibly a lamp – vellum paper creation attached with ribbons to a rotating mechanism suspended from the ceiling with a light on the inside.

IDENTITY – PERFECT FOLK STRIPES AND ERASING THEM

Thinking a lot about my Polish heritage and my current situation getting British citizenship. Feeling the lines of where I actually come from blurring slightly after over 20 years of not actually living in Poland, but traveling between Canada, US, Europe and Asia and living semi-permanently in London for the past 15 years. I am trying to overcome my fear of painting: trying something new not knowing where it will take me. The polish folk stripes symbolize the old, the one I used to know and yearn for while living abroad. The oil b&w body feel like the transition between drawing and painting and simultaneously entering the phase of dual citizenship.

Part 2 Identity & Duality

Continuous analysis of duality: the duality of identity, of identifying with two diametrically different places at the same time. The duality of belonging. Another one: an artist and a mother. These two could not be more extreme, as one smart actress once said: “the kids don’t care that their mother is an artist who’s trying to change the world, they want to know what’s for dinner tonight.”

The mental awareness duality: between depression and euphoria — which one do I choose today?

I feel like this list could go on forever.

So the idea behind this painting is to show the duality through different painting techniques. The reclining nude body with spontaneous, uncontrollable brush strokes, in oil paints — a new medium for me — and colours limited to grayscale. Contrasting that with acrylic markers, almost like drawing, much easier to control, in a pattern of very calculated stripes made with masking tape.

What’s the result going to be?

REFLECTIONS AFTER DO HO SUH EXHIBITION @ TATE MODERN

Last day of the exhibition and I was determined to see it as well as get my teenage son to see it with me and hopefully get a bit inspired and inspire the next generation. What I did not expect is to be totally and absolutely mermerised by how meticulous, tedious and time intense the process of Suh’s work was. I learned about rubbing which seems like whole another discipline in itself. Watching him and his assistants go through the process blindfolded made me feel quite uncomfortable. I don’t know why. But then seeing the finished works, the sketches, the unbelievable thread “drawings” pressed into the paper, it was magical. I wondered, in order for something to have such huge impact and effect on people, does it always need to be connected to such incredibly tedious and hard work, does only the practice that requires absolute exhaustion make sense in the end? I thought about my own practice, and how painful it sometimes gets to draw/paint the stripes on a large surface, how incredibly uncomfortable to hold my hand up high for so many hours…

I also thought about his idea of Home, and what does that even mean for many of us, who have lived in more than one place throughout their lives, some of us still constantly commuting between two/three countries. Especially on this course, with Daniella living between Paris/Losanne and London, with Sofi commuting between Moscow and other places. I myself have left Poland at 18 and since then lived in San Antonio in Texas, Vancouver in Canada, Los Angeles, New York, Alba in Italy and finally London. While living in all these places I always commuted between them and Warsaw 2-4 times a year. But somehow I don’t see Warsaw as the one and only true home. After over 15 years in London, where my children were born, I come back after the summer in Poland thinking: nice to be back home. But after 1-2 months I get so bored of the routine, I start counting days before the next trip to Warsaw. I am thinking about Suh’s interpretation of the Korean phrase ‘Walk the House’, which he interprets as “how we carry multiple places with us across space and time” as well as his idea that “‘home’ is not a fixed place or a simple idea. Instead, it evolves over time, and is continually redefined as we move through the world.” I see a lot of connection between Suh’s use of colour, my own work and my son’s work. Not sure what that means. For me the use of multiple coloured thread-like lines means two things: one the sentimental connection to the folklore of Poland: the coloured stripes of fabrics used to make folk dancers skirts, the rainbow colours used in paper cutouts telling simple tales of the countryside, the Easter eggs colours, the christmas tree multiple colour paper decorations. On the other hand it means my connection and support od the diversity of the world and the choice of living in a city, in which everyone is able to live freely, without being judged or experiencing discrimination based on superstitions and small. minded thinking. There is a huge juxtaposition as typically the small town and countryside people in Poland tend to be very narrow minded, their beliefs shaped entirely be their devotion to the catholic faith, absolute lack of connection to people of other beliefs, sexual orientatioin or different way of thinking. So there is this very interesting phenomenon of multiple colours/rainbow colours meaning two completely opposite things. Which is why I am so drawn to using them.

Also, the threads in Suh’s work bring back the memories of childhood spent alongside my grandmother, always either at her sewing machine, or doing embroidery, or knitting. There weare always muticoloured threads lying around, tangled. And somehow, she always managed to create something utterly beautiful out of that mess.

INABILITY TO USE STUDIOS

I have been trying to get a 3D Metal Workshop induction for the entire week, managed to do the online induction, struggled with ORB and Moodle booking systems, and after multiple emails received a message from metal workshop technician:

“Unfortunately MA Fine Art: Digital do not have access to book inductions or use the 3D Make Workshops.

It is my understanding that MA Fine Art is a online course with a low residency of physical access.”

This got me thinking and I still don’t know how I’m going to resolve my rotating mechanism metal construction. But also, I was reading a booklet by MA Fine Arts & Science students, Angelo Bartolome, who graduated this year, and here is an interesting quote that I found: “One moment in my studies that has changed how I work is the inability to use the ceramic studio”

I need a bit more time to reflect on this but I think it’s an interesting situation to be in and I do wonder where the inability to use the 3D Make Workshop will take me. Maybe I am not destined to work in 3D, or maybe I have to find another way to create what I need?

WOOTEN BROTHERS CONCERT @UNION CHAPEL – MUSIC MY INSPIRATION

My husband loves Victor Wooten and he booked the tickets ages ago. I didn’t know what to expect and was just trying to keep an open mind. But nothing prepared me for the absolute madness I witnessed. It felt like sitting in the hurricane chaos of someone else’s practice based research. The first half of the concert felt impossibly difficult to follow, with each of the Wooten Brothers going off on some sort of crazy adventure with their own instrument. Yet somehow there was this incredible feeling of absolute understanding between them, playing together again after a 50 years break, this undescribable family bond in the movements on stage, and reactions, truly magical. Then the second half just absolutely threw me out of my chair and made me dance and jump around like a 14-year old at Warsaw Jazz Jamboree festival, which I used to love going to so much. I was thinking about the massive part music plays in my life, not only when I choose to listen to it, to get inspired, as someties I forget to turn something on in the studio. But it’s more just making sure I’m being surrounded by it. I married a violinist, not the typical one, but the one that actually knows and listens to loads of types of music, not just classical. I made my kids play piano and I make sure they practice every day. I used to play piano for 6 years and then saxophone for 2, joimed a few bands on various occasions while playing saxophone. And now my obsession with dancers, who, of course, generally like to move to music, not in silence. So what does that mean for my practice? I don’t know. I definitely music affects me in a huge way, I get very emotional easily, especially at cheesy musicals and kids films. I also just need one good tune to get me out of a serious state of depression. So maybe it’s just that? Or maybe I’m still to find out…

NOTES AFTER MEETING WITH ADAM AT LCC ABOUT WORKHOP

Title: Reclaiming Grace: Dance, Motherhood, and Resilience

Description:

This workshop follows Lara Turk, a Covent Garden Royal Opera ballet dancer who is also a mother of three children, throughout her dance-mother-dance journey. Through her movement portraying the warmup process as well as ballet sequences, she is exploring dancers-mothers, their lived experiences of rejection, resilience, and transformation within a discipline that often demands perfection and denies vulnerability. Many professional dancers face exclusion from the ballet community after becoming mothers – whether through loss of roles, lack of institutional support, or the persistent stigma around the maternal body. This exclusion not only disrupts their careers but also profoundly affects their mental health, particularly during the fragile period of postpartum recovery. Feelings of invisibility, shame, and displacement frequently intertwine with the physical challenges of returning to dance.

Reclaiming Grace aims to create a space for empathy, visibility, and dialogue through movement, music and drawing. The session will include live, improvised performance by dancer-mother and a violinist, open drawing session of movement by participants, and a collaborative movement workshop inviting the audience to engage physically and emotionally with the dancers’ story. Through these embodied interactions, the workshop will reveal the strength and sensitivity of maternal bodies and question the rigid ideals of beauty and endurance that dominate ballet.

By witnessing, drawing, and moving together, participants will contribute to a collective act of recognition – fostering hope, solidarity, and a call for change within the ballet world. This workshop seeks not only to make the struggle of dancer-mothers visible but also to affirm their resilience and rightful place within the artistic community.

Structure:

As the spectator walks into the room, Lara will be in the middle of the room (Morris Room), with a dance/movement space marked out with masking tape. Her performance, a mix of ballet warm-up exercises as well as ballet sequences will be accompanied by live violin music by Jan Regulski (20 years member of Philharmonia Orchestra). The spectator will also be able to hear Lara’s voiceover telling her story from a speaker to get to know her experience better while watching her dance. There will be a short range projector (maybe two) placed on the floor, projecting b&w recording of the artists(Olga Szynkarczuk)drawing process of a ballerina moving (Yuka Ebihara, Primabalerina of Warsaw Grand Theatre). The lines drawn by hand in white charcoal on black paper will be projected onto Lara’s movements to enhance the cyclical, universal repetitiveness of dancer-mother-dancer stories. There will be A1 size 70g Tracing paper lying around on the floor as well as some small ual notebooks. These will be accompanied by paint sticks and acrylic/posca markers. The artist(me) will be present in the room drawing Lara during her performance, holding paper between dancer and projection and potentially hanging finished pieces on wires spread across the room for the spectators to witness. The spectators will be gently encouraged to sit on the floor and draw either on tracing paper or in the notebooks and to witness their work interact with Lara’s moves. There might be (if possible) a round paper lamp/sculpture, made from finished tracing paper drawings combined with multicolour threads, hung from the ceiling and attached to 360 slow rotating motor as an additional element combining movement, drawing and layered experiences of dancers-mothers.

What I will need:

1 projector, 1 laptop computer, connection cable (I will provide the second projector and computer)
20 – 30 sheets of A1 size 70g Tracing paper (from UAL art shop)
acrylic/posca markers in various colours

• ⁃ masking tape(colourful)

OZEMPIC STORIES/CONVERSATIONS/CONCERNS

This conversation keeps popping up in conversations within a whats app group with some very close friends. I am not sure why I have decided to share it, I think the situation is starting to concern me because I worry about the effect these “helpful” inventions might have for future generations. As well as the mental health issues connected to this type of addiction and the consequences of which will be experienced byt hese women’s daughters.

” Today, a normally chilled out friend said that she took it because she gained weight after antidepressants.. she never even told her husband.. she said that almost everyone at her work is on it.”

“Then I found out that another friend, who is very sporty and fit, but wanted to be very thin, was also using it.”

Me: I heard that one of the side effects of Ozempic is sudden loss of vision. It’s incredible how much “being very thin” means to people, as if it determines/makes them a better person or something… personally I think it’s usually rooted in childhood issues, problems with relationships, lack of acceptance and love, a general lifelong feeling of “I’m not good enough.”

“Ot’s about pharma focus on making more money – this should be banned unless you have very specific health reasons, but of course profit over everything. My friend says the side effects are terrible: complete addiction, hiding it from her husband, it’s mega expensive, so it’s starting to have a big impact on their budget. Her self-worth now only depends on how much she’s lost weight, which is very sad… and that is linked, of course, to the fact that women still feel the pressure to look a certain way to be worthy.”

“I wouldn’t even expect it from her because she seems like such a super normal, chilled girl (although she said she has to take antidepressants forever now, so I don’t really know her whole story). She used to stop before… but overall, she’s very slim now, really slim.”

I don’t even know what to think about all this. I’m devastated that the obsession with bodies and specific “look” and weight, still seems to be one of the biggest concerns on women’s minds, especially the group of wealty, well-off, wifes of rich husbands, who can afford it. I’m interested in researching what percentage of men has a similar problem, as well as women from less priviliged backgrounds, where they can’t afford such products.

NOTES ABOUT LAMP

Working on another prototype of my vellum lamp, created some drawings this week and now trying to figure out how to put them together. I’m considering stitching them together first and then trying to cover them in water, maybe spraying instead immersing completely to check if I can slow down the process and make sure the ripping doesn’t occur so much. I’ve ordered the turning mechanism and hoping to test it on the first lamp, which is now hanging in my studio and potentially going to be used for the Workshop on the 1 & 2nd of December. I was drawing a nude male model with the idea, that it doesn’t matter what the drawing looks like as it will become a lamp and somehow, yet again, I notice that when I think this way I am much happier when drawing and the lines/shapes feel more free. I am not sure how I could use this techinque/way of thinking moving forward but it is something to keep in mind I guess.

BIBLIOGRAPHY/RESOURCES

“Look at My Ugly Face!” Sara Halprin

Dialogues with Madwomen pg 103-106

Susanne Wenger „avoided realistic representation in favor of forms that express spiritual power and inner meaning” PG 114

“Bodies” Suzy Orbach

Exhibition: “Walk the House” by Do Ho Suh (cultural collisions, language barriers, identification when moving through the world)

Frieze London: Xin Liu from Public London Threads and beeswax works, Byungjun Kwon, who “develops robotic and audio hardware to channel collective experience through technology. Kwon’s Blossoming from the Center; The Golden Flower of Potentiality (2024) comprises purpose-built robots acting as avatars for otherness. Inspired by Korean shamanic dance traditions, through their seeemingly inexhaustible performance, the robots seek connectin with their human counterparts entering and exiting the fair.”

Hauser&Wirth Somerset exhibition the “Niki de Saint Phalle & Jean Tinguely. Myths & Machines”

TATE MODERN: NIGERIAN MODERNISM

Ben Enwonwu

„Nigerian Modernism: maternal figures as symbols of strength, continuity and transcendence”

„Art invokes the spirit world by giving it form”

„Overlapping figures in identical poses to create rhythmic patterns”

„Compositions marked by flowing, rhythmic lines and simplified human forms”

Shocking:

The Adanma masquerade is performed exclusively by men as part of Igbo cultural tradition, which generally limits all masquerade activities to male participants.

Key reasons for this tradition include:

Masquerade as a Male Domain: In Igbo culture, masquerades (Mmanwu) are fundamentally a male practice, and their creation, care, and performance are typically restricted to men who are initiated into exclusive secret societies.
Representation of Spirits: Masquerades are traditionally believed to represent ancestral spirits or deities, and only men are permitted to embody or interact with these spirits directly within the ceremonial context.
Performance of Femininity: The Adanma, meaning “beautiful woman” or “first beautiful daughter,” is a maiden spirit mask designed to idealize and display female beauty, grace, and elegance. Men wear the mask and costume to imitate these feminine attributes through dance, a performance of gender identity within a traditional framework.

• • Cultural Rules: Specific, strict rules govern gender interaction with masquerades in Igbo society. Women are traditionally prohibited from touching the masks or understanding the full spiritual meaning behind them, though they can observe the performance from a distance and participate in the cheering.

TATE MODERN Giacometti Exhibition: Jean Genet: „the loneliness of being exactly equivalent to all others”

ON DANCE AND BEING SKINNY

The ideal of being “skinny” in ballet intensified around the 1960s, largely due to choreographer George Balanchine’s “preference for a long, lean physique. Ballet has long idealized a sylphlike physique. The fixation on thin became amplified in the 1960s when Balanchine’s preference for long and lean ballerinas promoted a thin aesthetic that influenced other companies worldwide. Often, those who perpetuate unrealistic body standards today are former dancers who came of age during his reign. “Before this, professional dancers had a more diverse range of body types. Today, while a slim, athletic build is often seen as beneficial for the physical demands of elite-level classical ballet, many within the industry are working to promote health and a wider range of body types, according to Dance Magazine https://dancemagazine.com/the-cult-of-thin/

“Unfortunately, our entire culture right now glorifies extreme thinness. As a mother, I dread the day when my children learn that people will judge them on their appearance. Art can be a critical commentary on culture, but it can also display a culture at its extreme, and I think in ballet we see the continuation of today’s radically low weight-standard of beauty for women. Look at any television pilot episode and if the series gets picked up, all of the actresses come back 10 pounds lighter. Look at almost every ad in magazines or on bus stops and you see impossible examples of skinniness as beauty.” Former New York City Ballet principal Jenifer Ringer, 2014 book, Dancing Through It

TATE MODERN: NIGERIAN MODERNISM & GIACOMETTI

TATE MODERN: NIGERIAN MODERNISM

Ben Enwonwu

„Nigerian Modernism: maternal figures as symbols of strength, continuity and transcendence”

„Art invokes the spirit world by giving it form”

„Overlapping figures in identical poses to create rhythmic patterns”

„Compositions marked by flowing, rhythmic lines and simplified human forms”

Shocking:

The Adanma masquerade is performed exclusively by men as part of Igbo cultural tradition, which generally limits all masquerade activities to male participants.

Key reasons for this tradition include:

Masquerade as a Male Domain: In Igbo culture, masquerades (Mmanwu) are fundamentally a male practice, and their creation, care, and performance are typically restricted to men who are initiated into exclusive secret societies.
Representation of Spirits: Masquerades are traditionally believed to represent ancestral spirits or deities, and only men are permitted to embody or interact with these spirits directly within the ceremonial context.
Performance of Femininity: The Adanma, meaning “beautiful woman” or “first beautiful daughter,” is a maiden spirit mask designed to idealize and display female beauty, grace, and elegance. Men wear the mask and costume to imitate these feminine attributes through dance, a performance of gender identity within a traditional framework.

TATE MODERN Giacometti Exhibition: Jean Genet: „the loneliness of being exactly e

TWO TEMPLE PLACE WORKSHOP 2 – 06.11.25 FINAL STAGE

We walked around the space again, I made sure that Morris Room will be the best for me. It is the smallest of three, but also the darkest which is great for the projections and most intimate. It also has areas where people will be able to draw and a great space by the window for the violinist. My only concern now is getting the right projectors and making sure they work. The ultra short throw looked good but it’s also super heavy and big and I’m worried about it not being available when I need it. The other ones are really small so I worry they are not strong enough to work when the room is not blacked out. I will need to run some tests at home and see. I also don’t want the audience to feel intimidated by the projectors presence and humming and to be able to hear the dancers voice from the speaker. In my crit when I showed the lamp Felicity noticed that the ribbons reminded her of gymnasts ribbons attached to sticks and that she would like to see the lamp and ribbons moving, like dancing, like some sort of movement. And that was exactly what I was thinking about and discussing with Jonathan for my Workshop at Two Temple Place and was going to drop the idea as I worried there is nowhere to hang it. So now I am thinking I should definitely find a way to hang in from the chandelier in the middle of the room. Next to the dancer, who will be absolutely incredible and I am now even more excited about this workshop than I was before. Maybe I should hide the speaker in the lamp in the middle of the room, hanging from the chandelier?

Create workshop description – informative – for visitors telling them what to expect and how they can participate

SPACE & PROJECTION TESTS

TAMARA DE LEMPICKA

I have been offered a possibility to collaborate with a wonderful space Willa Art Deco on a project, which will be a performance monolog based on Tamara Łempicka’s life as well as a collaboration between Tamara’s grand daughter and the owners of the estate resulting in a recording of Tamara’s paintings being “finished” and captured on film by a hand of…another artist trying to put themselves in Tamara’s shoes. I have been mesmerised by her work for some time as she lived and worked at the same time as Zofia Stryjenska, who I have been a huge fan of for years now. The work of Tamara Łempicka is synonymous with the Art Deco style, characterized by bold portraits with geometric forms and an elegant, often luxurious quality. Zofia Stryjeńska, on the other hand, focused on folk and historical themes, illustrating Polish legends and fairy tales in a style inspired by folklore, which distinguishes her work from Łempicka’s aesthetic. I feel like I’m hugely interested in blending the work of two women together. I’m a huge fan of the boldness and brightness and spontaneity of polish folklore but I am equally interested in the luxurious elegance and cold, graphic minimalism of Tamara’s work. I am also facinated by the two women’s lives and complex personalities and the extreme ambitions to become successful in their fields. Lempicka placed a high value on working to produce her own fortune, famously saying, “There are no miracles, there is only what you make” (Passion by Design: The Art and Times of Tamara de Lempicka by by Kizette De Lempicka-Foxhall) and Stryjenska ended up abandoning her family to continue creating art and making money, which she then used mostly to send to her three children to support them (“Stryjeńska. Diabli nadali“by Angelika Kuźniak). I am fascinated by life stories of strong, independent women, who were able to use their art as a way to function as artists in a male dominated industry. I would also like to explore the painting techniques they used as the graphic, smooth aspect of their paintings seems to resonate with my own inner perfectionism and neatness. I feel like the more expressive, spontaneous and uncontrolled I get, the more I have a need to counter balance that with neat, clean surfaces. Even yesterday, when I first approached painting a sculptural form with acrylics, and initially just painted stripes allover the place, but then I suddenly stopped and wanted to clean the edges, make an even frame using tape. It’s like I’m alwasys balancing between chaos and control. I was also recently told I have a lot on masculine energy and wondered if I should feel offended. But I felt somehow it was a complement as if it meant strength and toughness. When reading about Lempicka I sense in her coldness and inability to express love something familiar, as if the only way I’m able to express love is by doing something for someone, or by telling them off. I am however quite happy with the sculptural painting I did yesterday, even though it doesn’t look like anything Lempicka or Stryjenska would do but it just sems to express the beginning of that chaos/control idea.