Exhibition: Agata Siwek

Agata Siwek still remembers the moment when she found out it was possible to drive a car to places in the Alps that were higher than the highest mountain in Poland. She grew up in the shadow of the Tatra mountains in southern Poland. Almost every day, she could be found waking, climbing, or skiing in the mountains. Having arrived in the Netherlands, the mountains were only accessible after a long car journey.

That offered new perspectives. She wondered how high she could get with a car. She went in search of traces of civilisation in the remotest of places. Between 2002 and 2008, she made a number of trips in her camper through various European mountain regions. She discovered viaducts, hotels, memorials, army camps, electricity cables, shepherd huts and hydroelectricty stations, located in the wildest and most inaccessible places. All these journeys she recorded in sketches.

A selection of these drawings can be seen during the Dutch Mountain Film Festival. To coincide with the festival, she has also taken a series of photos of the Dutch mountains. The photographs show that the word ‘mountain’ is one which is open to interpretation, something which we at the DMFF have always taken for granted! 

Agata Siwek (b. Pionki, Polen, 1972) is a visual artist who trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, the Glasgow School of Art and the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. She has been living and working in the Netherlands since 1997.

She is very much an all-rounder, interested in almost everything and sensitive to the social and political issues which influence her life. A view from her window or the death of a pet can be just as much a theme for her work as a charity event which goes wrong or extreme forms of nature conservation. As a result of countless moves, from a small village to the big city, from Eastern to Western Europe, from the industrialised countryside to a mountainous reserve and, last but not least, from Brabant to Limburg, Agata has come to look at the world from different perspectives.

The diversity of Agata’s thought-provoking works of art have one common message: nothing is as it appears to be. She manages to bring an array of subjects to our attention in a critical, humorous and ironic way. In doing so, she draws on personal experience and adventures. With her sharp eye and her strong social commitment, she tries to add something relevant and inspiring to her lived environment and to initiate a social dialogue. 

Agata’s oeuvre is versatile and multi-layered and consists of a diversity of objects, ranging from drawings, sculptures, textile works and ceramics to installations, books, small architectural works and souvenirs. Siwek’s work is are on display at home and abroad and in collections of museums and organisations (including the Museum van Bommel van Dam, Museum of Modern Art Mocak, Krakow, Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej, Zielona Gora, Poland and Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo).