It is the coal that Upper Silesia has been built upon, and it still continues to affect its landscape, also the urban one. The underground exploitation has a visible and explicit impact on the architecture. Along with mine closures, on the other hand, the surrounding itself begins to change, and nearby districts fall into decline. The results of these changes will still have their impact on the soil as a result of our actions, even once the last mine is closed.

Upper Silesian towns abound in tenement houses, but such that have gradually turned into ruin, and houses so crooked that only those who have been gradually crooked along with the buildings themselves are capable of living in them and working in them. The eponymous “angles of inclination” refer to a classification according to which buildings with an inclination exceeding 25‰ (a 2.5-centimetre difference in levels per square metre), resulting from mining damage, are not only burdensome, but in addition constitute a threat to public safety and should therefore not be approved for use.

Slope degrees. Michał Łuczak

26.09.2019-3.11.2019

INTERVENTIONS ON THE PREMISES OF MUZEUM ŚLĄSKIE

artistic cooperation: Joanna Rzepka-Dziedzic, Szymon Szewczyk

project supervision: Łukasz Adamski, Magdalena Czerny-Kehl

consultations: dr Seweryn Kuter

MICHAŁ ŁUCZAK

Photographer, visual artist, curator. Graduate of the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava and Iberian studies at the University of Silesia in Katowice. Since 2010, he has been a part of the Sputnik Photos collective. In recent years, he has been focusing on local problems, which may also be seen as universal: the consequences of the coal industry or the treatment of forests in the economic context. Author of the following photo books: Brutal (2012), Koło miejsca/Elementarz (with Krzysztof Siwczyk, 2016), 11.41 (with Filip Springer, 2016). His works have been awarded in such competitions as Magnum Expression Award, Mio Photo Award and the Photographic Publication of the Year. He lives in Katowice.

SZYMON SZEWCZYK

Audiovisual artist, scenographer, designer. Author of theatre music and the experimental electronic project entitled DMKHV. Graduate in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. He creates paintings, objects, collages and installations. He is interested in human relations with the material and cultural environment as well as in the search for unobvious connections between seemingly distant phenomena, conspiracy theories, creative makeshift, temporariness, cheap materials, DIY, information overload, suspicious scientific texts, stupid jokes, deadly seriousness, rubbish, imitations, disturbances, errors, made-up rituals, tamed exoticism, doubt in orderly knowledge of the world.

JOANNA RZEPKA-DZIEDZIC

Artist, curator, educator. Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts (currently: University of the Arts) in Poznań and the Institute of Creative Photography at the University of Silesia in Opava. Her artistic activity intertwines with curatorial activities and initiation of creative spaces that foster cooperation. Together with her husband she runs Galeria Szara [the Grey Gallery] in Katowice (until 2016 in Cieszyn), an independent, non-commercial cultural institution that for 17 years has played an important role in the artistic landscape of Poland.

POSTSCRIPT

The eponymous “angles of inclination” refer to a classification according to which buildings with an inclination exceeding 25‰ (a 2.5-centimetre difference in levels per square metre), resulting from mining damage, are not only burdensome, but in addition constitute a threat to public safety and should therefore not be approved for use.