Zachęta Project Room

The workshop is a kind of continuation of Jaśmina Wojcik’s previous project, presented at the Zachęta Project Room in 2012 with the title Hiding People among People Without Contact with Nature Leads to Perversions. That workshop drew attention to the fundamental human need for contact with nature, and gave rise to the creation of a wicker oasis in the centre of Warsaw, encouraging its residents to frequent the Praga-area banks of the Vistula, where wicker actually grows. The artist invited Jacek Gądek to work with her — Gądek is a passionate promoter of wicker as a building material — and he fascinated her with his approach and his artistic skills. Huts made of unbarked, natural wicker will become a venue for Warsaw’s inhabitants to come and hide and smell the natural environment of the Vistula and its climate, relax and rest a while. Original audio recordings of the Vistula will be played inside the huts.

A detailed plan of the workshops:

• 23 & 24 June (Tuesday–Wednesday) from 10 a.m.– 4 p.m., we encourage all nature lovers to take part in a collective painting of a Wisla riverscape on the walls of the Zachęta Project Room.
• 25 & 26 June (Thursday–Friday) from 4–7 p.m. Jaśmina Wójcik and Jacek Gądek will lead wickerwork workshops. These are open to all - from older children to adult enthusiasts.
• 26 June (Friday) at 7 p.m. will be the closing of the events and a performance by GRUPO DE CAPOEIRA ANGOLA ZIMBA WARSZAWA.

Jaśmina Wojcik – an artist and activist, graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Earlier, she graduated from the Secondary Art School in Nałęczów with a specialisation in artistic furniture. In her own words, she describes it as:

a dual course: one semester on furniture and one on wicker. I fell in love with malleable, natural wicker right away. It is a simple material, easily accessible, with which I’ve been linked all my life – I live on the Vistula River, where wicker grows and from where it is obtained. My diploma at the Secondary Art School was inspired by growing wicker fences (such as in Męćmierz near Kazimierz Dolny). Wicker is associated with baskets and armchairs, but we don’t think of it as a fascinating, easily accessible, and relatively inexpensive building material that can grow while meeting utilitarian functions, with a fully natural design.

Jacek Gądek – a practitioner in the cultivation of willow for creating living architecture and decorative handicraft. He specialises in the design and construction of living structures made of decorative and utalitarian plants, for example, willow domes. Vivid gazebos and pavilions serve as landscape architecture in open areas, parks, and nursery school playgrounds. He often carries out his projects in the form of workshops and open-air social events with the participation of local communities. He is the initiator of the 2017 willow domes waking AWARENESS educational programme, which helps create living architecture throughout Poland. For over ten years he has run the wierzbapolska.pl website, a source of information on the use of willow and wicker. In 2014, he conducted workshops in several places, including Wolimierz – as part of the Festival of Alternative Communities, at the Copernicus Science Centre in Warsaw, during the Food Co-operatives’ Congress in Kraków, and at a weekly open-air social event entitled Willow without Borders. He is inspired by Patrick Dougherty and Artur Wiechula.