Vergessenheit

In Polish culture, Gdańsk is inseparably associated with the Shipyard. However, this symbol is disappearing. Should we therefore be anticipating a time when all trace of it has vanished? If so, the issue of identity begs to be considered – especially the identity of Gdańsk citizens living in such a future time. Is it possible that the symbol of a ship/boat will no longer be recognised as a logical attribute of the city? Will the existence of the Shipyard, of it ONCE existing, become remote enough so as to become abstract? Will that dissolve any possibility of identification?

The Vergessenheit installation assumes the transposition of the viewer to a post-Shipyard era. The presented object – a deformed, symbolic “boat” levitating overhead immersed in another dimension – calls upon the phenomenon of the “forgetting of origins”. The Shipyard from this perspective is already distant and wiped from memory, while the object fragment becomes completely unfamiliar.

The placement of the project is key – the viewer of the space enters it from the known surroundings of the Shipyard and is thus confronted by the strange and fragmented “future”.