Agnieszka Polska

The Sun, 2012, video, 3’

The sun sinking to its demise – or rather the sun emerging from the vastness of the night – is the theme of this work by Agnieszka Polska, an artist focused on the duality and ambivalence of symbols. Here, the cover of cult magazine America is a pretext to question the cultural and political status of an empire which defines contemporary history all across the planet. Its “rise” – or prosperity – sets the pace for the world geopolitical balance. The artist also subversively contests the myth of one culture’s dominance over another. Born in still-communist Poland in 1985, she remembers how the West was idolised at the start of Central and Eastern Europe’s transition period. Historical time and individual memory both verify collective myths. Can the rising East lead to the West’s demise? Does the West also mean decline? This looped three-minute film keeps its distance from the collective zeal of yesteryear and, in so doing, brings up the painful issue of identity, which is so unavoidable in the global order of things.

Agnieszka Polska (b. 1985, Lublin) – visual artist. Creates animations, videos, collages and photographs. Since 2005 studied at the Graphics Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow.