"Nomads of Nowadays" is a planned international exhibition raising the problem of mobility - travelling and moving around of people as a phenomena characteristic for societies of the era of globalism. The exhibition tries to answer the question about the consequences of the present situation, to what extent the large scale mobility, breaking the bonds of man with his place enriches our knowledge about other cultures that we meet on our way, and to what extent mobility results in a feeling of alienation from the surrounding environment, how much it increases our tolerance of "the stranger", and to what degree it leads to closing in a circle of the closest, similar people. What is the effect of everyday meetings of people coming from different cultures: multiculturalism or cultural homogenization?
Nomadic way of living is characteristic for the social groups that are becoming extinct, people moving in search of grazing land for their animals (the Tuareg people or the Mongolians) or Gypsies, for whom travelling is an inborn need. In the pre-modern era travelling was a rareness in, so close to us, the culture of the West. As Zygmunt Bauman writes in his text "Post-modern Personal Patterns", "with the exception of sailors, merchants, wandering monks or soldiers, very few dared to go outside city walls or borders of their villages in which they lived from the day they were born till their last moments – always watched by the same people and with the same people to watch." (Zygmunt Bauman, "Post-modern Personal Patterns" in: "Studia Socjologiczne", 1993, 2 (129)
In the post-modern world, the development of technology enabling moving fast even between distant places, miniaturization of the equipment necessary during the journey on the one hand, and on the other hand - fragmentation of various areas of human activity, moving of the global job market and political conflicts resulted in the situation in which travelling and frequent changes of place of residence have become much easier and fairly normal nowadays.
The uncertainty of how long we are going to spend in the place in which we live also forces a change of our attitude to the space that we create around us. That is why we have almost stopped buying heavy and valuable furniture, solid enough to survive for future generations. Now we prefer light and cheap furniture that we could leave behind without any regrets when we decide to leave our present place of residence. Also our relation to external space is becoming less binding; we do not establish permanent contacts and lasting relationships with neighbours, we do not develop any special feelings about our city or neighbourhood. It is more our home and our privacy than a place of the residence that decides about our everyday activities.
There are many things that make us leave our homes. Tourism is one of the manifestations of mobility. As a tourist we make a decision on taking up a travel not because there is a compulsion but for pure pleasure of it, because we are bored with our own place, because we want to experience something exotic, because we are "hungry for new images". Bauman's tourist "devours the world, not being devoured by it, assimilates not being assimilated, 'domesticates' the strangeness of others, while priding himself on his own strangeness." (Zygmunt Bauman, "Post-modern Personal Patterns" in: "Studia Socjologiczne", 1993, 2 (129) The time of a tourist journey is the time 'suspended', the life goes on but it is 'the pretend life'. For a little while we become somebody else, we leave behind at home everyday seriousness and responsibilities. We can afford lightness and flightiness so as to painlessly 'jump into our old skin' after coming back.
Artists are also a social group who, because of their profession, often travel. Some of them deliberately take up the effort of a journey to develop a critical opinion about the world they pass. The exhibition will consist of the works of the artists that touch on the problems mentioned above, namely: Piotr Wyrzykowski (Poland/Ukraine), Lars Mathisen (Denmark), Margareta Klingberg (Sweden), Dorota Podlaska (Poland), Zbigniew Wendt (Germany), Kyrill Koval (Germany), Ulric Roldanus (the Netherlands), Susan Hefuna (Germany/Egypt),
Marta Deskur (Poland), R&Sie Studio (France), Vibeke Sjøvoll (Norway), Agnieszka Wolodzko (Poland).
Curator: Agnieszka Wolodzko
The exhibition is supported by: Mondriaan Foundation, Danish Arts Agency, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V., IASPIS, Royal Netherlands Embassy/Small Projects Programme
Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art
Jaskolcza 1 Street, Gdansk