Ola Lewczyk (poland )

// BIO

Her work is an ode to human hands, non-human substance and the relationship that forms between those.

She works and understands things through touch. Focusing on the process of making, she uses craft as a tool to explore constant movement of the boundary between human and nature; both working together and opposing to bend towards each others whim. That is what attracts her to old traditions and slow, repetitive processes – the bond that results from co-existing with my subjects and materials, the forming of an unwritten understanding, two-way companionship. It most often finds expression through clay, beeswax, biomaterials as well as food and ritual practices. Circularity as non-linear progression is a concept that exists on multiple levels in what she does. Both in a more physical, literal sense (materials, processes, working through iterations) and the more abstract (traditions, philosophies, ways of obtaining knowledge). She believes the old ways contain value systems of working and living that offer possible directions for coexistence in the present/ future.

She is grounded in slavic folklore, Eastern European culture and queer ecology. She looks into mystification of natural forces and post-humanist, anti-anthropocentric worldviews, communal rituals and rites of passage, models of cultural practices based on systems of care, locality and fluidity. The aim of her work is to highlight the significance of the unity of human and non-human and recover ways of being in the world that are filled with a sense of deep remembering, direct engagement and care. To do so, She continuously moves between the grounding and the intangible. In her practice personal symbolism is a medium and touch is a portal.

// PROJECT

The ancient production technology of ceramics of Narva culture is what she would like to base her project on. In essence- taking mud from the ground and collectively turning it into a vessel we can eat off, while tracing back the techniques and traditions through making.

The aim of the project is to:
*research and give an understanding of traditions of the Neolithic potters through practical experiments, collective making and usage of local resources
*deepen the knowledge about patterns of life of previous generations that have an influence on our present

*bring awareness to the contemporary usage of natural resources, the labour, time and processing involved in production of objects

*deepen the bond with our surroundings in a very simple and pragmatic yet ephemeral way, strengthening the emotional connection to land
*build a sense of unity of the collective