The Oekumenische Europa-Centrum Frankfurt (Oder) e.V. in cooperation with the European University Viadrina has brought the monumental sculpture SORRY of the Polish artist Joanna Rajkowska to Frankfurt (Oder). For the first time, the work named last year as one of the ten most important art events in Poland can be seen internationally.
On the Oder promenade puts a gray barrier in the way of the strolling in the summer of 2023. Three meters high and spiked with glass, it stands intimidating and it seems as if the dark times of high border walls have returned to the German-Polish border. This impression is calculated.
The artwork's backstory began with anger and shame: Joanna Rajkowska was stunned when refugees from the Middle East were forced to squat in the forest for months on the border between Poland and Belarus in 2021. Meanwhile, the European Union, dedicated to defending humanitarian values, persisted.
Rajkowska then designed an anti-monument that was intended to be a reflection of human double standards: a statement made of concrete. Anyone who walks up to it feels thwarted and may react angrily. For there is a barrier of 25 tons that must now be bypassed. Those who have the opportunity to look at the artwork from a bird's eye view will see that the walls form the word SORRY. Two contrary messages in one work of art - and thus close to social reality, where words and deeds often speak different languages.
The artist attaches particular importance to the fact that the perspective has to be changed in order to be able to fully grasp the sculpture: standing frontally and close in front of it as a wall that seems insurmountable, or at a distance, looking down from above, forming the word SORRY.
Often, what a "sorry" means in everyday life is a matter of perspective. Rajkowska refers to the meaning in the English-speaking world, where "sorry" is less a sincere apology and more an excuse to carry on as before.
This dichotomy is taken up by the artwork: SORRY is conceived for the public urban space and challenges all passers-by to engage with it. In Frankfurt (Oder), this reflection is almost inevitable, as the installation site is located right next to the city bridge that connects Germany and Poland and is regularly crossed by many locals. Bridge and wall stand for three summer months as a pair of contrasts on the German-Polish border, which is hardly visible today.
SORRY, however, is not only meant to literally stand in the way, but - despite its bulkiness - to be understood as an invitation to engage with the different levels of meaning. It serves as an aesthetic-material starting point for a series of events to which those responsible for the project, namely cultural coordinator Constance Krüger and university chaplain René Pachmann, often invite in collaboration with university or municipal actors. Various topics ranging from migration policy to ecology and local issues to spirituality are discussed here.
The artist's current project fits into a series of works she has created for public space. Often these are projects in which she involves local people (Oxygenator (2009), Plac Grzybowski in Warsaw) or that reveal a hidden historical dimension of the urban space (Greetings From Jerusalem Avenue (2002), Rondo Charles de Gaulle, Warsaw)
More information on Joanna Rajkowska's work can be found on her website: www.rajkowska.com/en/
Excerpts from the accompanying program 2023
June 29 - 5:00 p.m. | Vernissage with welcoming address by Prof. Mühle, President of the European University Viadrina
July 6 - 11.00-15.30 | Scientific Symposium "(Anti-)Monumentality, Site, Environment: Contemporary Sculpture in the Ecologically Expanded Field" (event in English, EUV, room AM 02)
July 6 - 6:00 p.m. | Talk with artist Joanna Rajkowska (BLMK)
July 8/9 - 12:00/14:00/16:00 respectively | Orientations and information about the artwork (as part of the HanseStadtFest)
July 10 - 5:00 pm | "Sorry, dead!" Political-artistic performance
July 12 - 6:30 p.m. | Not Just SORRY Stories. Ukrainian voices about Ukraine.
Promoter
Oekumenisches Europa-Centrum Frankfurt (Oder) e.V. in cooperation with the Cultural Coordination of the European University Viadrina
Project management
Constance Krüger, Cultural Coordination: ckrueger@europa-uni.de
René Pachmann, Catholic University Chaplain:
rene.pachmann@mariamagdalena-oderlandspree.de