In May 2022, Robert Kuśmirowski created a site-specific environment called DUSTribute for Kunstraum Dornbirn. In the former assembly hall of the Rüschwerke factory, the artist designed a post-apocalyptic scenery evoking the “Zone” – a closed-off space from Andrei Tarkovsky’s classic film Stalker. Historical, cinematic, and narrative systems of reference interlaced to create a story of existential threat and incredible beauty.

We are showing DUSTribute II in a hall resembling that from Dornbirn. The sandy ground and diffuse light create a magical world where the human figure ekes out an existence in harsh, lifeless surroundings through everyday toil, hoping for a better future that never comes. The oppressive, anxiety-laden atmosphere is reinforced by the inscrutable beauty of this mysterious parallel world.

Will the Gdańsk edition be a one-to-one transfer of the DUSTribute from Dornbirn? Or a carefully worked-out illusion of this installation? Kuśmirowski evokes the narrative potential of his works by recreating and staging past times and exhibitions. His references are rooted in collective and individual history mixed with fiction and imagination, and the staged duplicates occupy a consciously ambivalent position toward memory and the process of shaping historical narratives.

Robert Kuśmirowski is a performer and author of installations, objects, photographs, and drawings. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts, Institute of Fine Arts, at the Maria Skłodowska-Curie University in Lublin, where he works as a lecturer. Kuśmirowski holds the Passport award granted by Polityka weekly and the annual Ministry of Culture and National Heritage award in visual arts (2011). His works refer to the material culture of various eras, invoking memory, history, and nostalgia of the past, disappearing underneath subsequent layers. For the artist, recreating the material culture of days gone by turns into a way of tackling subjects such as impermanence and death.