The Widow is one of the effects of the transformation process Aleksandra Ska has gone through following the death of her husband in 2014. The experience of loss involved the change in the artist’s marital and social status. Trying to cope with the condition, she embarked on a process of working through her personal experiences and cultural expectations as well the social and legal provisions relevant to the widowhood.
Living with loss and in the state of loss is not about remembering or commemorating it. It is a complex process, including saying goodbye to the deceased, coming to terms with the new situation, existential reconstruction, confronting the socio-economic condition. The Widow is an attempt to approach the above process from a creative perspective. The artist invited a team of collaborators to participate in the project – since widowhood is a social condition, it requires a collective action.
The exhibited works represent the tools of transformation used to illustrate its phases. They refer to such stages of the process as putting on and taking off masks, emerging from the state of mental eclipse, wandering in search of a new place and role, signing proposals for a new social contract and, finally, working to improve the condition of the widowed. The exhibits thus make it possible to experience the process or to actively participate in it.
Aleksandra Ska – artist, professor of fine arts and head of the Studio of Affective Practice at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. Her works question the established social and cultural patterns relating to gender identity, affective expression, interpersonal relationships and life roles. She uses installations, videos and objects not only as forms of artistic expression, but also as tools of dissent. Her goal is to disrupt social and cultural patterns of thinking and to act through art.
Aleksandra Ska has participated in a number of collective exhibitions, including: Tellers. Dialogue between contemporary and medieval art, National Museum, Poznań, 2024; Manifesta 14: Prishtina 2022, Kosovo; Deserted Earth, Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw 2019; Beyond the pleasure principle. Affective operations, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2017; Forming in the Pupil of an Eye, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India, 2016; State of life. Polish contemporary art in a global context, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China, 2015; Cannibalism. On appropriation in art, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2015; Correspondences. Modern Art and Universalism, Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź, 2013; Warmth/Cold – Summer Love, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2006; Collection of 20th and 21st century art. Sketch 3: beyond the principle of reality, Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź, 2008. Her major solo shows include: Pandemia, Piekary Gallery, Poznań 2015; Kitchen Dynamite, Office d’art contemporain, Brussels, Belgium, 2010; Object in Mirror Are Closer than They Appear, Piekary Gallery, 2009.
