ZAMEK Culture Centre

The exhibition I Remember Through the Image presents the newest site-specific installation by Joanna Czarnota, offering a look into memory through the perspective of the reproduction of a work of art. A key element of the exhibition is the reproduction of the painting, once rescued and restored, which had belonged to the artist’s family for over 60 years. This token became a vessel for childhood memories as well as post-memories related to family history. The artist’s anthropological interpretation of the reproduction—as an active participant in both micro- and macro-history, mediating between an apartment on Grabiszyńska Street in Wrocław and the former Imperial Castle in Poznań—opens a dialogue between the personal and intimate, and the collective and public dimensions of memory. Czarnota subjected the photographic reproduction of the reproduction to retouching, while its monumentalized print became the object of performative gestures—tearing and stitching—reflecting the tension between the acts of destruction and repair, the fading of memories, and the process of remembering and care.

curator: Julia Stachura