Światy (meaning ‘worlds’ in Polish) are traditional kinetic decorations made of Christmas wafers. Formed in spherical, planet-like shapes, they were hung in homes to attract good fortune. Christmas wafers symbolised bonding, reconciliation, and kindness and were also shared with animals as a gesture of interspecies unity.

Paweł Błęcki’s światy presented at NARRACJE are much larger than the traditional ones. They are covered with plastic plants collected by the artist at cemeteries around Tricity and artificial flowers. Handicraft meets mass production here, clashing with the realities of countries entangled in mechanisms of exploitation. In Światy, the artist attempts to tie these distant worlds together.

Błęcki has his feet firmly on the ground – interested in handicraft’s role in art therapy, he reaches to the past of our mothers and foremothers, anchoring the truth he finds in herstories. In Światy, this would-be archaeologist also refers to specialist terms related to reconstructing the history of human and non-human beings. The artist takes us on a journey deep into the urban tissue – inside its layers and archaeological strata. The funerary urban world becomes an object of geological and anthropological research. In practice, however, the artist/archaeologist is not interested in conserving the past. Błęcki is attracted by the here and now – and what is yet to emerge. After all, new worlds are coming.

Paweł Błęcki is a photographer, sculptor, and author of objects and installations. He graduated in Intermedia from the University of the Arts in Poznań and Photography from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. He also studied archaeology and culture studies, as well as photography at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague. He is currently doing a PhD at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. Błęcki is the initiator of various workshops and participatory activities. He co-founded the Bureau of Worthwhile Activities, an art and research collective that works with sustainable production and accessibility in the field of art. In his works, he tackles social, environmental, and political themes.