KATARZYNA (KASIA) SLOBODA
Since 2009 I am involved in curating and researching practices of contemporary art, choreography and improvisation in the context of exhibition making and participatory projects. I have edited several publications on dance, choreography and contemporary art.
I have a Ph.D in dance studies (thesis: Embodied attention in contemporary dance practices in the perspective of critical dance studies / Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw // supervisor: prof. Krystyna Duniec). I was teaching classes at at the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the University of Łódź (curatorial practices, dance/choreography/performance).
Currently I’m an Assistant Professor in curatorial studies at the Art Academy in Szczecin. Between 2009 and 2022 I had been a part of curatorial team at the Modern Art Deparment in Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz.
I am a member of AICA - International Association of Art Critics, as well as Board Member of Forum Association of Dance Art Societies and Common Space collective. Between 2019 and 2022 I was a member of CIMAM - International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art. Together with Alex Baczyński-Jenkins, Ola Knychalska, Julia Morandeira Arrizabalaga and Kasia Właszczyk developed How to touch movement? Social choreographies, performance and queer feminisms as world-making kem school programme.
I am a recipient of Grażyna Kulczyk fellowship in the field of contemporary choreography and Młoda Polska scholarship (2018). In 2018 I was a visiting researcher at the Centre for Dance Studies / Roehampton University, London.
The experiments in the field of dance in the second half of the 20th century resulted in an expansion of the notion of choreography. Nowadays choreography, as a cluster of various practices developing on the verge of the arts, does not to have to be understood exclusively as composing the movement of bodies or notation of dance. Choreographic tools are being used to produce relationships between heterogenous elements in structures organising time and space as well as to inquire into their dynamics and intensities. Choreography enables us to think critically about corporeality, subjectivity, performativity and the conditions of art production. It can be understood as sensual analysis, on the intersection of what is intimate, social, political and aesthetic.
The exhibition Frames of Reference. Choreography in the Museum focused on choreographic practices and the modes of presentation of performative actions in collaboration with a group of Polish choreographers. The artists were invited to temporarily use the first floor of Museum Sztuki on Więckowskiego Street as a space for rehearsals and research. During their stay in the museum, during regular opening hours, they returned to concepts and strategies present in their previous works, looking for ways to open their practice to visitors. In the second half of April they moved from the exhibition space, leaving behind scores, objects, documents and situations to be experienced by the audience until the May the 8th.
The actions of the artists and their traces presented the possibility to re-think the meaning of movement, attention and multi sensual perception in our constantly actualised relations with and to the environment. What drives our attention? What part do emotions, affects and imagination play in our perception? How does the object of our gaze influence our actions? How are our bodies composing with the dynamics of movement of other elements in our reality? What is our frame of reference?
Artists: Alex Baczyński-Jenkins, Przemek Kamiński, Ramona Nagabczyńska, Anna Nowicka, Magdalena Ptasznik, Agata Siniarska, Iza Szostak, Kasia Wolińska, Marta Ziółek