05.12 - 16.02.2025
Marta Bogdańska. Vive la Résistance! In the eye of the beholder
‘Until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter’ 1
What if there exists a ‘resistance movement’ that we do not recognize or understand? A silent but persistent rebellion against human domination. What if non-human animals have been intentionally and purposefully fighting for their needs throughout the ages, and every manifestation of their struggle is in fact a manifestation of their own justice and ethics? Will valiant snails and bloodthirsty rabbits, like those painted in medieval marginalia, be responsible for changing the status quo, for changing the conditions under which we share space with each other – hitherto set by representatives of our species? And finally, how would the animal historian’s account of this rebellion differ from how it plays out in human imagination?
December 27th, 2007, at the San Francisco Zoo, a Siberian tigress named Tatiana leapt across a three-metre-high fence to exact revenge on three men who taunted her and the neighboring lions.
February 20th, 1991, Victoria, Canada and February 24th 2010, Orlando, USA. In two separate incidents 19 years apart, an orca named Tilikum drowned two female trainers by holding them down at the bottom of a pool.
2020-2024, the Strait of Gibraltar. A family of orcas capsizes nearly 700 yachts for reasons unknown.
In such cases, standard human narratives rely on the words: ‘accident’, ‘instinct’, ‘savage’, ‘incidental’. They portray the protagonists of these events as passive and mindless beings, denying purposefulness to their actions. Meanwhile, animals continually – in the face of exploitation, violence, and practices that deprive them of their territories and resources – challenge these reductive views by engaging in various forms of resistance. After all, can the tigress Tatiana be denied the moral high ground? In search of her tormentors, she circled the zoo for nearly half an hour, indifferently passing everyone else. She knew who she was looking for – those who were to suffer punishment. Why had Tilikum – held captive for decades – killed two trainers when not a single human being had ever suffered in the hundreds of attacks on yachts in the Strait of Gibraltar, nor in any other encounter with free-living orcas?
‘Vive la résistance!’ is a multi-faceted project developed by Marta Bogdańska, in which the author explores the nuanced ways in which animals challenge systems of oppression, asserting their autonomy despite their voices being largely misunderstood and silenced.
In its first public showing – in an exhibition entitled ‘In the eye of the beholder’ – the artist delves into stories and representations she has recovered from numerous archives, raising questions about the relationship between human and non-human points of view and examines our, often anthropomorphised, images of animal resistance.
She also reflects on areas of separation between humans and other animals, the negotiation of space among species, the reversal of the relationship between the beholder and the observed, and the possibilities of changing perspectives.
As the Nigerian proverb states – in this exhibition, Marta Bogdańska acts as the ‘lion historian’ and effectively deprives us of certainty as to which side of the bars or the aquarium glass we actually stand on and who is watching whom.
1 ‘Until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter’ after http://thelionandthehunter.org/about-this-project/
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Marta Bogdańska - visual artist, photographer, cultural manager, filmmaker (including “Unicorn”, ”Between” and “Next Sunday”) and FotoPlus educator. Graduate of philosophy at the University of Warsaw. She studied gender studies at the University of Warsaw and art at the Home Workspace Program in Beirut. She also graduated from the Academy of Photography, the School of Looking, the Open Institute and the School of Ecopoetics. She has implemented international artistic and cultural projects. She lived in Lebanon for over 8 years. Marta is a member of the international platforms Futures Photography and Women Photograph. She is currently preparing the premiere exhibition of the new project "Vive la Résistance!" at the Fort Institute of Photography as a laureate of the National Grant Program "Hestia's Artistic Journey" for 2024. This year she also won the prestigious artistic residency "Artist Meets Archive #4" at the Internazionale Photoszene in Cologne and Archivo Platform LAB2025. Winner of the Konrad Pustoła Scholarship, the Spojrzenia Competition - Deutsche Bank Foundation Award, the Selma Lagerlöf Association scholarship, the Pix.House Talent of the Year Award. She has received international grants for projects, e.g. from the Culture & Animals Foundation in New York or the Photography Europea Festival. She has participated in many artistic residencies, including at the Institute of Postnatural Studies in Madrid, Gasworks in London, Landskrona Foto in Sweden and Nida Art Colony in Lithuania. She has published Plaintext and SHIFTERS. The latter was chosen as the best international publication of 2022 by Festival PHotoEPSPANA and recognized by international awards for photography books such as Luma Arles Book Awards, Mack First Book Award or Kassel Dummy Award. Marta's works and films have been published and shown all over the world.
ACCOMPANYING EVENTS
- December 8, 2024 | Sunday | 1:00 p.m. – guided tour by Marta Bogdańska with curator Olga Łacna, with a PJM interpreter (free admission)
- January 26, 2025 | Sunday | 4:00 p.m. – meeting of Marta Bogdańska and Olga Łacna with Dr. Habil. Prof. UŁ Anita Jarzyna (free admission)
- February 8, 2025 | Saturday | 4:00 p.m. – workshop of the Wielozmysły Foundation, adapted to the needs of the blind and visually impaired (registration required)
ADDITIONALS INFORMATION
Financed by the Hestia Artistic Journey Foundation.
Exhibition Partners: Fundacja Artystyczna Podróż Hestii, STU ERGO Hestia S.A., Artibo, Qprint, Falter, Hahnemühle.
IFF Foundation Patrons: Fort Mokotów, White Stone Development
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Translation: Agnieszka Sobolewska, Kaja Burakiewicz
Substantive consultation: dr hab. prof. UŁ Anita Jarzyna
Exhibition production: Julia Pietrzak-Szczudło
Printing and framing of photos: Q-print
Wallpaper: Paweł Pogoda
Construction of scenography and exhibition assembly: Wiktor Korzeniowski
Video Sound: Jarosław Downar
PR: Edyta Pawłowska