Wednesday 18 September - Thursday 31 October 2019
l'étrangère
44A Charlotte Rd
Shoredtich
London EC2A 3PD
Solo exhibition of Joanna Rajkowska’s new works. They follow on from ideas developed for her most recent sound sculpture, The Hatchling, a large-scale replica of a blackbird’s egg, currently exhibited at Frieze Sculpture.
The Hatchling emits the sounds of the labour of hatching birds: their heartbeat, the pecking of the shell and the first vocal attempts to signal their coming to the world.
The Hatchling inspired a wide range of reflections on the power of empathy and humans’ ability to feel and understand other species. It signals the fundamental importance of and our dependence on other species.
A slightly different thread can be found in the collages with the shape of an egg as a leitmotiv. Here the egg represents the distorted globe, referencing the earth. The egg-earth is used to reflect on how we humans, in the age of Anthropocene, irreversibly changed the landscape through its appropriation.
The series of photographs, Avant-garde for Insects, offers a different context for reflections on the environment and post-human nature. They show six rooms of an insect-house, where insects are exposed to the classics of the Avant-garde.