Soon Everything Will Change is a public project centred around a crystal formation from a Brazilian mine. The work was produced in 2014 for the Erdington district of Birmingham – not so much as a site-specific installation but as a nomadic device.

The artist, fascinated by the Brazilian mix of beliefs and rituals, decided to use the purifying power of the crystal to create a local chakra. The crystal niche installed in the Erdington public space – formed over millions of years, a timeframe beyond human imagination – subtly influenced people who decided to spend time with it. With its gentle hypnotising properties, the object disarmed and stimulated the imagination. It was a reaction to the growing crisis of values and the powerful, gnawing sense of impending change. In the face of a violent climate crisis, can we still delude ourselves into thinking that the direction our culture dictates to the world is right?

Eight years after its creation, the wandering chakra arrives in Przeróbka. In Gdańsk, Rajkowska’s crystal becomes a ‘monument’ for the district – a gem dedicated to ruderal species and all those that will have to deal with our legacy. The crystal’s purifying power disperses anxiety, allowing us to accept (with hope?) that soon everything will change.

The project will be accompanied by the performance Soon_Everything Will Change presented on Friday and Saturday at approx. 7.00 p.m. (beginning of the performance is coordinated with a curatorial tour).

CREATORS:
author: James Oldham
soprano: Paulina Araśniewicz
baritone: Maciej Naczk
violin: Julia Ziętek
accordion: Błażej Reiter
The Tadeusz Tylewski Choir of the Medical University of Gdańsk (Tomasz Jaskółowski, Andrzej Kurek, Illia Yafimau)

Joanna Rajkowska is a multi-faceted artist whose projects are most often created for the public space in which they live and age. To build them, the artist uses existing places, energies, organisms, and materials; she produces films, photographs, and models. Convinced that people as a species have not been able to create a vital, sustainable culture, Rajkowska often juxtaposes (human) historical and socio-political contexts with the lives of other species. Her work visualizes and questions the dichotomic division between nature and culture. Rajkowska’s most famous work is still Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue (2002), which has become one of the symbols of Warsaw.