Letter To a Roosting Tree
Intervention on a Horse Chestnut Tree, Ujazdowski Park, Warsaw
Hand painted text on cotton banner, inkjet print.
Dimensions of the banner: 186 cm x 66,5 cm, framed print: 42 cm x 30 cm.
2025
The work consists of a banner displayed on a horse-chestnut tree located at the park in front of the CCA Ujazdowski Castle. The tree communicates with the exhibition space through a print that shows a letter sent to Sophie Liebknecht by Rosa Luxemburg from prison in Wroclaw in 1917. The letter makes an account of a flock of crows passing and chatting among themselves up in the sky, above the prison yard where Rosa was among other prisoners. Rosa Luxemburg uses the onomatopoeia "Kau-Kau" for depicting the sound of the crows. The tree and banner can be seen from the window adjacent to the place where the letter is exhibited.
Fragment of the letter:
"Sonyichka, the evenings are so magical now, as though it were spring. Around 4 p.m. I go down into the prison yard, where twilight has already begun, so that the hideous surroundings are shrouded in the mysterious veil of darkness, but in contrast, the sky still glimmers with a sweet blue light, in which there floats a moon of clear silver. Every day at about this hour, high ni the sky, hundreds of crows pass diagonally across the prison yard ni a ragged, widely spread out flock heading out to the fields to the "roosting tree," where they wil spend the night. They fly with their wings flapping leisurely and exchange peculiar calls- quite different from the sharp krah with which they rapaciously chase their prey during the day. Now the call sounds soft and muted, a deep, throaty call that somehow gives me the i mpression of a little metallic globule. And when several of them take turns gurgling out this kau-kau one after the other, to me it is as if they were at play, tossing one another litle metal bals that arc gently through the air. They're chatting calmly about what they've experienced, talking "of the day, of the day enjoyed today ".
Hand painted text on cotton banner, inkjet print.
Dimensions of the banner: 186 cm x 66,5 cm, framed print: 42 cm x 30 cm.
2025
The work consists of a banner displayed on a horse-chestnut tree located at the park in front of the CCA Ujazdowski Castle. The tree communicates with the exhibition space through a print that shows a letter sent to Sophie Liebknecht by Rosa Luxemburg from prison in Wroclaw in 1917. The letter makes an account of a flock of crows passing and chatting among themselves up in the sky, above the prison yard where Rosa was among other prisoners. Rosa Luxemburg uses the onomatopoeia "Kau-Kau" for depicting the sound of the crows. The tree and banner can be seen from the window adjacent to the place where the letter is exhibited.
Fragment of the letter:
"Sonyichka, the evenings are so magical now, as though it were spring. Around 4 p.m. I go down into the prison yard, where twilight has already begun, so that the hideous surroundings are shrouded in the mysterious veil of darkness, but in contrast, the sky still glimmers with a sweet blue light, in which there floats a moon of clear silver. Every day at about this hour, high ni the sky, hundreds of crows pass diagonally across the prison yard ni a ragged, widely spread out flock heading out to the fields to the "roosting tree," where they wil spend the night. They fly with their wings flapping leisurely and exchange peculiar calls- quite different from the sharp krah with which they rapaciously chase their prey during the day. Now the call sounds soft and muted, a deep, throaty call that somehow gives me the i mpression of a little metallic globule. And when several of them take turns gurgling out this kau-kau one after the other, to me it is as if they were at play, tossing one another litle metal bals that arc gently through the air. They're chatting calmly about what they've experienced, talking "of the day, of the day enjoyed today ".
, fot. Bartosz Górka, Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski 1.jpg)
