Life is on a new high, Mumbai, photo: Alicja Dobrucka
Alicja Dobrucka’s work will be apart of the Restate exhibition which investigates the notion of identity by pointing at the difference between inhabited places and anonymous empty spaces and re-establishing the relationship between artistic expression, public perception and building architecture.
Dobrucka’s photo essay – Life is on a new high - aims to address the issue of the changing landscape and unregulated construction in the financial capital of India, Mumbai. The city has more supertalls (buildings over 300 metres) and skyscrapers under construction than any other place in the world. Life is on a New High shows a variety of these new buildings in their settings, and pairs each with an excerpt from a property advertisement, which highlights the disparity between the new upmarket consumer and the inhabitants of the nearby slums.
Apart from Alicja Dobrucka’s photographs, the exhibition will also features works by four other international artists - Stian Ådlandsvik, Teresa Braula Reis, Alona Rodeh and Harry Thaler. They emphasise aspects of production and temporality by connecting conceptual topics with a more material-orientated experience. With works ranging from video, photography, design-oriented sculpture and installations, the exhibition is structured like a conceptual map in which each of the building elements are contemporary art topics reinterpreted and explored by these artists through their individual practices.
Alicja Dobrucka was born in the Polish town of Kowary in 1985. Today she is based in London, following her graduation from the London University of the Arts. Her work has received a number of prestigious prizes, such as the Sortiri Prize 2011 in Korce, Albania and in 2010 she received the highly competitive Deutsche Bank Fine Art Award and Grant in Photography at the Saatchi Gallery in London. She has exhibited her works around the world, including the Asia Art Projects at the Studio X in Mumbai, Experimenta EXD'11 - Architectural Biennale in Lisbon (2011), as a part of the Bloomberg New Contemporaries at the ICA, London and the S1 ArtSpace and Site Gallery in Sheffield (2011), and many more.
The Restate Exhibition with Dobrucka’s display will run from 4 April to 17 April, 2014 at London’s NEO Bankside, Pavilion A. It is curated by Carmen Stolfi and co-curated by the art:i:curate network.
NEO Bankside, Pavilion A
50 Holland Street, London SE1 9FU
Opening times:
Mon - Thu 10am - 6pm
Fri - Sun 11am - 5pm
Sources: articurate.net, dezeen.com, culture.pl, ed. & translated: Katarzyna Maksimiuk, 31.03.2014