The Earth is cracking beneath out feet and disintegrating before our eyes, but in its centre you can no longer see neither the beautiful Persephone, nor the dead Eurydice, or even the hellfire depicted in Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings. The cracks are more and more often post-mining sinkholes, huge excavations of opencast mines, quarries, mining damage. In areas such as Upper Silesia or Zagłębie Dąbrowskie, mining and post-mining areas, the spectre of the Carbocene, an epoch in the history of the world, which is the reverse of the carboniferous period, looks out of the holes. Epoch of mining, exploiting, ravaging and inflicting more and more severe blows on the Earth.
During the ‘Underground. Subterra incognita’ exhibition you will be able to see the effect of joint work of the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice and the University of Silesia on the spectre of the Carbocene and empty coal underground, undertaken as part of the Laboratory of environmental knowledge of the region. The exhibition will include works by Rafał Bujnowski, Arkadiusza Goli, PhD, Prof. Grzegorz Hańderek, Ludwik Holesz, Iwony Jelonek, PhD, DLitt, Assoc. Prof., Bogdan Kosak, Piotr Muschalik, PhD, DLitt, Assoc. Prof., Dominik Ritszel, PhD, Michał Smandek, PhD, Paweł Szeibel, PhD, Prof. Andrzej Tobis, and Prof. Ireneusz Walczak. The event will be accompanied by lectures, meetings, discussions and workshops with participation of Anna Barcz, PhD, DLitt, Monika Glosowitz, PhD, Michalina W. Klasik, PhD, Prof. Janusz Janeczek, Prof. Andrzej Kowalczyk, Prof. Jacek Leociak, Zbigniew Mirkowski, PhD, Lucyna Sadzikowska, PhD, DLitt, Assoc. Prof., Joanna Soćko, PhD, Prof. Piotr Strzałkowski, Prof. Adam Rostański, Paulina Walczak-Hańderek, Marta Tomczok, PhD, DLitt, Assoc. Prof., and Pawła Tomczok, PhD, DLitt, Assoc. Prof.
The vernissage will take place on 17 February at 6.00 p.m. at the BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice. The exhibition will open with a lecture by Prof. Ryszard Koziołek ‘Katabaza’, while the lecture of prof. Tadeusz Sławek ‘Exit from the Underground’ will close it. The exhibition will run until 24 March 2023.
The organisers are: Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, University of Silesia and BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice.
The exhibition is the result of activities undertaken within the Coal Zone during the 6th Silesian Science Festival KATOWICE.
