TALES FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE WELL

“Even though you believe me
my story is beautiful
And the serpent that sang it
Sang it from out of the well”.

– Leonora Carrington, from the collection “The Seventh Horse and Other Stories”, early 1960s

The serpent felt me with its forked tongue. It hissed in my ear a story that was at once beautiful and hopeful, but also sad and cautionary. Me and the heartless, mindless jellyfish have more in common than I could ever imagine. We too are mostly made of water. I drifted in waters for nine months. Warm, soundless waters that separated me from dry land. I fed on the breast milk. Many a time I licked tearful streams. Blood regularly flows from me, carried by the orbits of the moon. This bleeding is preceded by explosions of sexuality making my body moist.

Listening, I drew water from the well to quench my thirst. The water that slipped from my cupped hands reminded me of dinosaurs, filtered through tropical forests. Condensed as a cloud, it wandered between continents and sprinkled cultivated fields, recalling fish and birds bathing in it, as well as the bodies of Slavic rusalkas and ancient nymphs. What once seemed distant or inaccessible became close. The most banal and wondrous of substances is to flow with life. Some claim that we know the surface of Mars better than the depths of the oceans. Perhaps that’s why we use the term ‘nobody’s waters’. But they are ours, shared, trans-national and trans-body.

The exhibition “Tales from the Bottom of the Well” presents artists (Alicja Biała, Dobrawa Borkała, Justyna Górowska, Natalia Kopytko, Art Project Revolution and Agnieszka Szostek) who in, their practice, tell stories about water beings. They spin their narrations with tenderness and respect.

The exhibition takes place in the unique space of the Avenarius House, the headquarters of the Borowik Foundation, located in the heart of Warsaw’s Saska Kępa district. The location once belonged to the old Vistula riverbed and was uninhabited until the 17th century, treated as a living reservoir of resources necessary for the production of everyday objects or materials for the dikes. This proximity broadens the interpretation of the works and provokes encounters with art embedded in both local and global contexts.

artists: Alicja Biała, Art Project Revolution, Dobrawa Borkała, Justyna Górowska, Natalia Kopytko, Agnieszka Szostek

curator: Katarzyna Piskorz

organizer: Art Project Revolution
partners: Polish Art Now, Borowik Foundation

media patronage: ChilliZet, MINT Magazine