installation
ceramics, sound

composition, text, saxophone: Natan Kryszk
voice of the frog: Ólafur Sverrir Traustason
voice of the gull: Patrycja Pączkowska
vibraphone: Tymon Kosma

Przymorze Park is a green space in the Tysiąclecia Estate with a rich history. It once formed part of the Cistercian abbey’s lands, before becoming the estate of the Gdańsk-based Konradi family in the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century, the property passed into the hands of Friedrich Ehler, mayor of Gdańsk, who is now regarded as the founder of the garden established here. In 1983, the park was entered in the register of historic monuments as a Baroque garden. The site of the installation was once occupied by a pond.

This opera about a frog and a gull, created for people and frogs, is dedicated to Żabianka and to the animals that once inhabited the areas around Gdańsk’s streams and rivers. It evokes a time when, instead of housing blocks and people, this was a landscape of wild nature.

The artist on his work:

Frog and Gull tells the story of an encounter between two completely different worlds. The frog speaks of the down-to-earth, small and local, of tranquillity, closeness to nature, night and the steady rhythm of wetland life. The gull, in turn, speaks of freedom and open spaces, but also of chaos, noise and struggle.

Bringing their voices together in the form of an opera creates a story of closeness and understanding across divisions, between creatures that share everyday moments and emotions. Despite inhabiting radically different worlds and moving in opposite directions – the gull flies upwards, while the frog swims along a stream – the two protagonists meet in the universal experience of being together, among us humans. The libretto can be read as a story of love or friendship that crosses the boundaries of nature, but also as a gentle, tender interplay and a meditation on transience, prompted by changes in their environment and in the lives we share.

NATAN KRYSZK

is a visual artist, painter, sculptor and saxophonist, co-founder of the trio Pokusa (Olter/Bryndal/Kryszk). He is also involved in the Warsaw Improvised Scene through the Impro Mipng series and performs with Ray Dickaty’s Warsaw Improvisers Orchestra. As a sculptor, he collaborates with Grupa Nowolipie, Paweł Althamer, Józek Gałązka and Ada Rączka. He has composed music for theatre and dance productions by Irad Mazaliach, Weronika Pelczyńska, Patrycja Kowańska, Justyna Sobczyk, Theatre 21, Kuba Kowalski, Daria Kopiec and Marta Ziółek. Originally from Gdynia, he lives and works in Warsaw.