The Dark Side of The Sun seems to herald a coming change. The oxymoron on which the construction of the title is based refers – perhaps quite coincidentally – to the phenomenon of a total eclipse of the Sun: an event so unusual that it has been arousing terror for centuries and heralding an unexpected breakthrough.
We invite participants to experience “rooting”, outlining a new point of view, or more broadly … empathy. Feeling with all the senses the Kingdom of Plantae, which is inspiration, nourishment, sound, smell, touch, space, light…
Our relationship with the world is in constant change, just as nature is in constant change. The cycles of nature, its patterns and strategies inscribed in sunrises and sunsets, in autumns, winters, springs and summers, in new and full moons, are in constant process – in motion “towards survival.” Plants, despite their (apparent) static nature, are also constantly evolving and adapting to new environmental conditions. This metamorphosis, is often invisible to us, because the time scale and life cycles of human nature and the Kingdom of Plants do not match. As Anna Królikiewicz wrote about our experience: “We in relation to the cycles of nature, human-plant proximity, shortening the distance. Of course, we won’t literally enter the skin of plants, but the attempt to come into contact with their world on new principles (other than anthropocentric and gazeocentric) allows us to shake the familiar set of cultural codes. It’s not about learning about nature itself, but about being in it by modifying the concept of the image of the world as only to be seen. We are encouraged to go inside the (country)image, to be able to empathize, to intimately blend in there with its haptic polyphonic sensory system, in which the awakened senses interact with each other, to question our own human subjectivity (…).”
We invite you to the river, the meadow, the park and the pond. “We “lock” as if in a time capsule, the cycle of plant development into a 24-hour process of multisensory experience, pointing to four places and four moments in the day for our encounters.
- 4.33 am – phase 1 / seed, germination and vegetative development
- 12.00 pm – phase 2 / flower and fruit, reproduction
- 6.00 pm – phase 3 / dormancy, torpor
- 00.00 am – phase 4 / aging, dying
Each phase was accompanied by a different smell, a different taste and a different soundtrack and a different arrangement of the experience space. We begin on Saturday, July 9, at Sunrise (4:33 a.m.), to meet again at Full Sun (12:00 p.m.) and at Twilight (6:00 p.m.) in the afternoon and end in the light of the Moon at midnight (00:00).
We meet each time on the back terrace of the Old Palace (Piano Museum) in Ostromecko. We ask very, very much for punctuality!