Translocal, Transnational, and Hybrid Spatial Spaces

We (Francesca Ceola and Simone Rueß) designed a processual multimedia workshop to encounter, reflect upon, and upend questions on translocality, of transnationalism, and of hybrid cultural and space-oriented structures. Working actively with the workshop room using time-based, graphic, and performative languages, we aimed to ground broad, abstract concepts in graspable experiences. We first got into the atmosphere of thinking visually by watching and discussing Camilo Bravo Molano’s audio-visual work “Liquid Homes”: a film portrait mapping a displaced person’s experience in Portugal. The participants were then invited to share ideas and explore possibilities to translate and elaborate on the broad concepts of translocality, transnationalism, and hybrid spatialities. We used graphic prompts, language, and performative explorations to enhance this embodied analysis that we developed both individually, then collectively. The workshop closed with a lecture by Prof. Dr. Magdalena Nowicka through a self-reflection on spatialities of migrants and transnational affect. She put in words aspects and differences of transnational and translocal homes introduced to us through Bravo Molano’s film images in the beginning of the workshop.

More to read about on our blogpost @sfb1265

Facing Pairs and Changing Dialogue Partners: A Drawing-Exchange in Transition

The participants were sitting along tables, in a line, in the room. In the middle of the tables, a line of drawings was laid out: to stimulate sensorial reflections including division, connection, detachment, leaving behind, and new beginnings. The lines drawn on paper represented a visual simplification of complex relationships of translocality, transnationality or hybridity. They could be associated with borders, border crossings, border dissolutions, and separation. The drawing paper and pens handed out to each participant invited personal pictorial reproductions, transformations, or further developments of the graphic proposals. Participants in pairs exchanged about the graphics lying between them in one moment, only to be urged to abandon the conversation at the next, leaving their exchanges behind, and proceeding to the following dialogue partner. Engaging in couple-of-minutes increments almost overwhelmed us with a threefold intensity: the sound of all engaged voices, the flow of ideas, and the frantic timing of conversation changes.

The series of drawings laid out on the tables to initiate and orient participants’ conversations were inspired by the artist Chiara Carrer’s book Pensar el espacio. Reflejos, superficies, y colores (transl. “Thinking the Space. Reflections, surfaces, and colors”). Some drawings are a direct re-interpretation of Chiara Carrer, while others were developed from the drawing research of Simone Rueß and her conversations on spatial imaginations with more than 30 interviewees from all over the world. (excerpt of the blogpost @sfb1265)

A Room with Borders, Barriers, and Open Forms: An Embodied Non-verbal Interaction

(...)

Participants were confronted with the challenge of having to leave their present position in the room to reach another point in the space, limited by the four structural walls but also some additional cardboard walls. Acting in their own space, participants initially imperceptibly created a common structure of changing distances in the room. Forms and shapes of paper left behind, foreign lines, and cut-outs found at the next position, they gradually triggered more conscious interactions with spatial traces of the others. One sequential letter after the other, local and migrated shapes formed fragile hybrid common figurations. (excerpt of the blogpost @sfb1265)

Islands of Creation and Synthesis: Individual and Collective Reflexion, drawings and ensembles by María Linares (1), anonymous participant (2), Ludovica Tomarchio (3), Workshop part 5, 2024.

Islands of Creation and Synthesis: Individual and Collective Reflections in a Shared Space

(...)

The rapid, time-framed and place-constrained interactions explored during the workshop can be observed and were intentionally initiated as cues for refiguration of spatial, social, psychological, and cognitive (as in how associations of ideas are enhanced) arrangements and constellations that tell us something around concepts of translocality, transnationality, and hybrid cultural space-oriented structures. The setup of a laboratory with sequential tasks and reflection allowed us to grasp the nature of these spatial structures both in an abstract and elementary way. Film, verbal exchange, figurative language, movement, drawing, symbols, performance, objects, language, and lecture. In diverse media and transdisciplinary reflections, we looked at these formats and terms from various sides, as if we deconstructed their characters into multifaceted multiple layers. Thinking towards expanding the edges of the refiguration theory vis-à-vis territorial structures, we engaged with the diffracted meanings of translocalization with a postnationalist critique to explore practices, memories, and meaning-making at multiple levels: socio-material, ecological-economic, and symbolic-transcendent. As a result, the drift of notions, shifts, and hybridization were not just a conceptual exercise but also a figurative and embodied one". (Conclusion in our blogpost @sfb1265)

Harte Zeiten – Ciężkie Czasy

Simone Rueß (2021). de-re-konstrukt – "Lass uns von vorne beginnen...", pp. 98-107

ZUHAUSE/HOME

People with experiences of flight and migration often create a new home in temporary forms of housing such as container villages. At the same time, they remain connected to their homeland through memories and contacts with those “back home,” while seeking ways to live out their cultural everyday needs.

In a workshop at Kunsthalle Tübingen, I invited participants from Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Pakistan to share memories of a home, to explore mental images of their current (hybrid) home, and to imagine visions of a future form of living. These individual ideas were captured in a collective large-scale drawing and documented in a video – both as a creative process and as a vision of communal life.

Menschen mit Flucht- und Migrationserfahrung schaffen sich meist in temporären Wohnformen wie Containerdörfern ein neues Zuhause. Gleichzeitig bleiben sie über Erinnerungen und Kontakte zu „Daheimgebliebenen“ mit ihrer Heimat verbunden und suchen nach Möglichkeiten, ihre kulturellen Alltagsbedürfnisse zu leben. In einem Workshop in der Kunsthalle Tübingen lud ich Teilnehmer*innen aus Afghanistan, Albanien, Armenien, Türkei, Irak, Libanon, Nigeria und Pakistan ein, Erinnerungen an ein Zuhause zu teilen, mentale Bilder eines derzeitigen (hybriden) Zuhauses zu erkunden und Visionen einer zukünftigen Wohnform zu imaginieren. Diese individuellen Vorstellungen wurden in einer gemeinsamen großformatigen Zeichnung festgehalten und in einem Video dokumentiert – als kreativer Prozess und als Vision eines kollektiven Zusammenlebens.

In addition, together with the participants, we explored their inner images of home in narrative interviews, which I then translated into drawings. In this way, mental spatial images emerged that make visible both personal sensitivities, hybird identities and the socio-spatial conditions of refugees.

Ergänzend ergründete ich zusammen mit den Teilnehmer*innen in narrativen Interviews deren innere Bilder vom Wohnen, welche ich anschließend in eigene Zeichnungen übersetzte. So entstanden mentale Raumbilder, die persönliche Befindlichkeiten, hybride Identitäten, ebenso wie sozial-räumliche Gegebenheiten Geflüchteter sichtbar machen.

Fragile Remembering, Varation II

From 2019 to 2023, Simone Rueß visited senior citizens with memory disorders in the Ernst-Berendt-Haus of the Stephanus GmbH in Berlin Weißensee and let them describe their biographical memories which she then translated into drawings. These conversations were the basis for a detailed artistic analysis in the form of double time graphs, which reveal weightings of certain biographical and historical data in relation to memory capacity.

A video gives insights into the conversations with the protagonist K. H. Stauffer. Originally from the region of Lviv, K. H. Stauffer’s family fled from today’s Poland near Wroclaw to Rhineland-Palatinate in 1945, where he grew up with his family on a four-sided farm. He later managed the farm himself for many years. He not only expresses his spatial experiences of displacement linked to current geopolitical conflicts, but also finds ways to describe his embodied limitations and physical restrictions as a senior citizen suffering from Parkinson’s disease. With the help of animated diagrams and a documented light installation, the film expresses the conflictual resonance of time and space along fragile remembering.

Corresponding to the short film portrait, the floating color installation portrays the space biography of another patient, representing and abstracting the biographical conversations over a period of 3 years. Based on diagrams, colored strips of different lengths materialize the narrated and remembered experiences. They rotate around their own axis, forming a kinetic landscape, expressing the constantly changing memory capacity. Each horizontal line materializes a conversation, each colored strip a sentence. Each color stands for a remembered person (relatives, friends, community, etc.).

Przestrzeń Działań Społecznych

In the workshop led by Simone Rueß, a collective map was created based on a performative exploration of urban space. The starting point were mental images of selected spaces of Katowice and performative and linguistic interactions with places such as the train station, the shopping center and the pedestrian zone.

The aim was to draw attention to the network of socio-spatial relationships in Katowice. According to Martina Löw's relational spatial concept, space is a constantly changing arrangement of people, other living beings, goods and architectural objects. This space is synthesized through the processes of
perception, imagination and memory.

Furthermore, Simone Rueß' concept for the workshop was based on Kevin Lynch's (1960) idea of the mental image of the city and Grzegorz Kowalski's theory and teaching of the “own/common space”. (Excerpt summary of the workshop at NIAiU, Warsaw)

In dem von Simone Rueß geleiteten Workshop wurde eine kollektive Karte auf Basis einer performativen Erforschung des städtischen Raums erstellt. Ausgangspunkt waren mentale Bilder ausgewählter Räume von Katowice und performative und sprachliche Interaktionen mit Orten wie dem Bahnhof, dem Einkaufszentrum und der Fußgängerzone. Ziel war es, die Aufmerksamkeit auf das Netz der sozialräumlichen Beziehungen in Katowice zu lenken. Nach Martina Löws relationalem Raumkonzept zufolge ist der Raum eine sich ständig verändernde Anordnung von Menschen, anderen Lebewesen, Waren und architektonischen Objekten. Dieser Raum wird durch die Prozesse der Wahrnehmung, der Vorstellung und der Erinnerung synthetisiert. Simone Rueß‘ Konzept für den Workshop stützte sich außerdem auch auf Kevin Lynchs (1960) Idee des mentalen Bildes der Stadt sowie auf Grzegorz Kowalskis Lehre vom „Eigenen/Gemeinsamen Raum“. (Ausschnitt Zusammenfassung des Workshops at NIAiU, Warschau: https://niaiu. pl/2024/05/przestrzen-dzialan-spolecznych-podsumowanie-warsztatow/)

Hell-mittelgraue Wolke (März 2022)

Fragile Remembering, Friedenskirche

From 2019 to 2023, I visited senior citizens with memory disorders in the Ernst-Berendt-Haus of Stephanus GmbH and led them describe their biographical memories to me. I translated these into drawings, which could be seen on the ground floor of the Ernst Berendt House in 2022. In the form of a short film portrait, the audience at the open-air theatre Weißensee over the summer of 2022 were given insights into the world of perception with dementia. In the church on the foundation's premises, the resonance of the fragile memories was translated into a spatial installation and sensually experienced.

In a floating colour installation, I combine the 16 biographical conversations that I had with a dementia patient over a period of 3 years into a colourful spektum. In this way, I materialise the narrated and remembered interpersonal relationships of my conversation partner in the form of coloured strips of paper of different lengths. These hang on horizontally stretched strings and rotate around their own axis, forming a kinetic landscape. Each cord materialises a conversation, each strip of paper a sentence. Each colour stands for a remembered person (relatives, friends, community, etc.).

Von 2019 bis 2023 besuchte ich Senior*innen mit Gedächtnisstörungen im Ernst-Berendt-Haus der Stephanus GmbH und ließ mir biografische Erinnerungen beschreiben. Diese übersetzte ich in Zeichnungen, welche 2022 im Erdgeschoss des Ernst-Berendt-Hauses zu sehen sind. In Form eines Kurzfilm-Portraits bekamen Zuschauer*innen auf der Freilichtbühne Weißensee über den Sommer 2022 hinweg Einblicke in die Wahrnehmungswelt mit Demenz. In der Kirche auf dem Gelände der Stiftung wurde die Resonanz der fragilen Erinnerungen in Form einer räumlichen Installation übersetzt und sinnlich erfahrbar gemacht.

In einer schwebenden Farb-Installation fasse ich die 16 biografischen Gespräche, die ich mit einem Demenzerkrankten über 3 Jahre hinweg führte, zu einem Farbklang zusammen. Damit materialisiere ich die erzählten und erinnerten zwischenmenschlichen Beziehungen meines Gesprächspartners in Form von farbigen Papierstreifen unterschiedlicher Länge. Diese hängen an horizontal gespannten Schnüren und drehen sich um ihre eigene Achse und bilden zusammen eine kinetische Landschaft. Jede gespannnte Schnur materialisiert ein Gespräch, jeder Papierstreifen einen Satz. Jede Farbe steht für eine erinnerte Person (Angehörige, Freunde, Gemeinschaft, etc).

The installation is based on diagrams that were created for each conversation and which visualise the interpersonal relationships along the narratives.The composer Catherine Lamb reacts with her sound piece to the score-like conversation diagrams and makes the colour installation vibrate during the opening of the exhibition.

Der Installation liegen Diagramme zugrunde, die zu jedem Gespräch erstellt wurden und welche die zwischenmenschlichen Bezüge entlang der Erzählungen visualisieren. Die Komponistin Catherine Lamb reagiert mit ihrem Klangstück auf die partitur-ähnlichen Gesprächs-Diagramme und bringt die Farbinstallation während der Eröffnung der Ausstellung in Schwingung.

Hellblau für den Vater, rosa für die Mutter des Erzählers, rot für den Erzähler, und so weiter. Jeder Papierstreifen steht für einen Satz. Die Länge der Papierstreifen bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum, über den der Erzähler berichtet, und ist in drei verschiedene Papierlängen unterteilt: lang für das „Aufwachsen“, mittellang für das „mittlere Alter“ und kurz für das „Älterwerden“ in der Gegenwart und in den letzten 20 Jahren. Wenn der Erzähler 2 bis 4 Personen in einem Satz erwähnt hat, werden 2 bis 4 Farben zu einem Papierstreifen gefaltet. Erinnerungen an mehr als 4 Personen zugleich materialisieren die beigen Streifen: das soziale Umfeld, also die Familie, den Chor, mehrere Freunde...

Light blue for the father, pink for the mother of the narrator, red for the narrator, and so on. Each paper strip stands for a sentence. The length of the paper strips refers to the period of time the narrator was telling about, divided into three different paper lengths: long for 'growing up', medium for 'middle age' and short for 'being a senior' in the present and the last 20 years. If the narrator mentioned 2 to 4 people in a sentence, 2 to 4 colours are folded into a strip of paper. If the senior mentioned more than 4 people, the strip is coloured beige for the social environment, which could be the family, the choir, several
friends.

Fragiles Erinnern, 2022, dreiteilige Ausstellung, 17.6.- 20.11.2022, Ernst-Berendt-Haus, Friedenskirche, Freilichtbühne, Weißensee

The strips of paper rotated slightly and echo the fragility of memory. Each string materializes one meeting. This slowly moving landscape, with its various heights, transforms the temporality of remembered interpersonal relationships into a spatial experience. Historical time is unfolded in hight, narrative space unfolded in breadth, the installation seeks to create an imagination of time that is shown to us in the form of a spatial shape (Bergson 1993, 25).

Die Papierstreifen drehten sich leicht und spiegeln die Zerbrechlichkeit der Erinnerung wider. Diese sich langsam bewegende Landschaft mit ihren verschiedenen Höhen verwandelt die Zeitlichkeit der erinnerten zwischenmenschlichen Beziehungen in eine räumliche Erfahrung. Die historische Zeit entfaltet sich in der Höhe, der erzählerische Raum in der Breite, die Installation schafft eine Vorstellung von Zeit, die sich uns in Form einer räumlichen Gestalt zeigt (Bergson 1993, 25).

Zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen 2019-2022 Diagramme, Fragiles Erinnern ID01, G05-08, 2022, basierend auf 16 Gesprächen mit einem Bewohner des Ernst-Berendt-Hauses, Inkjet auf Papier, 50 x 60 cm

___________________________
_{^{Bergson, Henri. 1993. Denken und Schöpferisches Werden: Aufsätze und Vorträge, Hamburg: EVA Europäische Verlagsanstalt}}

K. H. Stauffer (space biography)

Since September 2019, artist Simone Rueß has been visiting people with dementia in the Stephanus Foundation's Ernst Berendt House. In returning conversations, she invited them to describe their spatial experiences, which she then visualized in drawings. In 2022 she presented the series of drawings in the exhibition “FRAGILE REMEMBERING” on the site of the Stephanus Foundation, together with an site-specific installation in the Friedenskirche.

In the direct neighborhood of the exhibition FRAGILE REMEMBERING, the open air cinema Freilichtbühne Weißensee was showing a short film portrait of K. H. Stauffer, which documents the moment of fragile memory of biographical experiences. K. H. Stauffer fled with his family in 1945 from present-day Poland to the Rhineland-Palatinate, where he grew up with his family on a four-sided farm. He later managed this farm by himself for many years. Resettlement and escape as well as the Iron Curtain play a central role in his memories. In addition to a spatial biography album, which the artist is constantly expanding in collaboration with the protagonist, we see and hear three excerpts from the large-scale project “Space/Time/Resonance” (2022), in which Simone Rueß explores “how geopolitical caesuras are written down in spatial biographical narratives…”

Seit September 2019 besucht die Künstlerin Simone Rueß Menschen mit demenziellen Veränderungen im Ernst-Berendt-Haus der Stephanus Stiftung. In wiederkehrenden Gesprächen lässt sie sich Raumerlebnisse beschreiben, welche sie im Nachhinein zeichnerisch visualisiert und 2022 in der Ausstellung „FRAGILES ERINNERN“ auf dem Gelände der Stephanus Stiftung präsentiert.

In unmittelbarer Nachbarschaft zeigt die Freilichtbühne Weißensee anlässlich der Ausstellung FRAGILES ERINNERN ein Kurzfilm-Portrait von K. H. Stauffer, welches den Augenblick des fragilen Erinnerns an biografische Erlebnisse dokumentiert. K. H. Stauffer floh mit seiner Familie 1945 aus dem heutigen Polen in die Pfalz, wo er mit seiner Familie auf einem Vier-Seiten-Hof aufwuchs. Später bewirtschaftete er selbst jahrelang diesen Hof. Die Flucht sowie der Eiserne Vorhang spielen in seinen Erinnerungen eine zentrale Rolle. Neben eines Raumbiografie-Albums, das die Künstlerin in Kollaboration mit dem Protagonisten ständig erweitert, sehen und hören wir drei Auszüge aus dem umfassenden Projekt „Space/Time/Resonance“(2022), in dem sich Simone Rueß damit befasst, „wie sich geopolitische Zäsuren in raumbiografische Erzählungen niederschreiben...“

K. H. Stauffer (space biography), 2019-2022, short film, Freilichtbühne Weißensee, based on conversations with K. H. Stauffer, 4min

Animation

Diagrams with a vertical historical timeline and a horizontal narrative timeline summarize the narratives (in this case narratives by K. H. Stauffer). Weightings of certain space biographical data become visible in relation to memory capacity. Superpositions and condensations reveal how certain experiences of respondents, influenced by geopoliti- cal caesuras, acquire more frequented resonance.

Light recording [micro-light installation]
On the 18th of January, 2022, for the duration of eight hours, daylight was recorded on a sheet of paper with a small funnel in a darkened room on a micro scale while appearing on a monitor via a webcam. The digital light cone translates the phenomenon of filtering perceptions onto the screen (as a magnified sensor).

Sound piece by Catherine Lamb
Filtered ambient sounds are the basis of the piece inter sum (2019). Taking into account the various transitions of acoustic perception between indoors and outdoors, Lamb applies a resonance band-pass filter to her ambient field with her synthesizer instrument, thus reflecting the constantly fluctuating field of attention.

Lichtaufnahme [Mikrolichtinstallation]

Am 18. Januar 2022 wurde für die Dauer von acht Stunden in einem abgedunkelten Raum Tageslicht auf einem Blatt Papier mit einem kleinen Trichter im Mikromaßstab aufgenommen und über eine Webcam auf dem Monitor eingeblendet. Der digitale Lichtkegel übersetzt das Phänomen der Filterung von Wahrnehmungen auf die Leinwand (als vergrößerter Sensor).

Klangstück von Catherine Lamb

Gefilterte Umgebungsgeräusche sind die Grundlage von Lambs Stücks inter sum (2019). Unter Berücksichtigung der unterschiedlichen Übergänge der akustischen Wahrnehmung zwischen drinnen und draußen wendet Lamb mit ihrem Synthesizer-Instrument einen Resonanz-Bandpassfilter auf ihr Umgebungsfeld an und hält so das ständig schwankende Aufmerksamkeitsfeld fest.

walk-in, 4.9.2020 (Warszawa – Berlin)

On the constructed 23-metre-long footbridge in the garden of Gallery Le Guern, visitors actively contribute to a connection across physical distance through their participation on 4 September 2021. Built from material from Warsaw and Berlin, the bridge is the starting point of the happening. The Varsavian artist Krzysztof Franaszek is present on site in the gallery garden, while Berlin artist Simone Rueß is present on the bridge digitally on a screen. Visitors can follow how the two artists meet again virtually, and they can also talk live with the Berlin artist. The installation invites visitors to share their current (border) experiences during the pandemic. The happening makes the transnational relationship tangible and evokes memories of territorially specific border cases. The action relates digital and physical proximity to each other. Differences in distances are experienced, spatial approaches are tested and digital and analogue presence are negotiated with each other.

Na fali (Warsaw)

Na fali [1] is the result of a formal analysis of the topographical form of the Princely Garden in Warsaw. The characteristic element of the Warsaw landscape - the layout of the Warsaw Escarpment Skarpa Warszawska and the Poniatowski Bridge - has been transformed into a series of abstract forms, operating with strong colors. Situated in a clearing, the sculpture spreads out in front of the pavilion's terrace, creating not only a recognisable spatial accent, but also a usable piece of plein air furniture for enjoying the summer. Created specifically for the summer pavilion Stacja Mercedes, the realization is a consequence and development of the artist's earlier work. She understands the city as a giant sculpture defined by the movement of its inhabitants. Szymon Żydek, 2013, Curator of the Bęc Zmiana Foundation, Warsaw.

1: pol. fala: wave – poln. byc na fali: to ride the wave / to be "in"

Na fali [1] ist das Ergebnis einer Formanalyse der topografischen Gestalt des Fürstengartens in Warschau. Ein charakteristisches Element der Warschauer Landschaft - die Anlage der Warschauer Weichselböschung Skarpa Warszawska und der Poniatowski-Brücke - wurden mit Hilfe kräftiger Farben in eine Reihe abstrakter Formen verwandelt. In einer Lichtung platziert, breitet sich die Skulptur vor der Terasse des Pavillons aus und bildet nicht nur einen wiedererkennbaren räumlichen Akzent, sondern auch ein benutzbares Pleinair-Möbel zur sommerlichen Erholung. Hergestellt im Hinblick auf den Sommerpavillon Stacja Mercedes steht die Realisierung für die konsequente Weiterentwicklung vorangegangener Arbeiten der Künstlerin. Sie fasst damit die Stadt als riesige Skulptur auf, die sich über die Fortbewegung der Bewohner*innen definiert. Szymon Żydek, 2013, Kurator der Bęc Zmiana Stiftung, Warschau. 1: poln. fala: Welle – poln. byc na fali: auf der Welle reiten / "in" seinThis is a block of text. Double-click this text to edit it.

Na fali to wynik analizy form topograficznego ukształtowania Parku na Książęcem. Charakterystyczny element warszawskiego krajobrazu – układ Skarpy warszawskiej oraz Mostu Poniatowskiego – został przetworzony w ciąg abstrakcyjnych form, operujących mocnymi kolorami. Fala umieszczona na polanie rozpościerającej się przed tarasem pawilonu stanowi nie tylko rozpoznawalny akcent przestrzenny, ale również użyteczny mebel plenerowy umożliwiający letni odpoczynek w słońcu. Stworzona specjalnie z myślą o pawilonie Stacji Mercedes realizacja stanowi konsekwencję i rozwinięcie wcześniejszych działań artystki traktującej miasto jako ogromną rzeźbę zdefiniowaną przez ruch jego mieszkańców. Szymon Żydek, 2013, Kurator Fundacji Bęc Zmiana, Warszawa

Na Fali (Warsaw), 2013, steel, paint (9 modules), each up to 70 x 130 x 170 cm

remembered site of the Vistula bank, with the Poniatowski bridge (Warsaw), 2015, pencil and coloured pencil/pens on paper, 15 x 30 cm

The site of the Summer Pavilion is located directly on the important link - the Poniatowski Bridge - between western Warsaw and Praga to the east of the Vistula. The bridge not only crosses the Vistula, but also directs traffic over a long stretch of the Powiśle district in the river valley. Here, the city has been organically adapted to the topography, with an almost uninterrupted bushy slope down to the river. The woody slope towards the river valley has been preserved almost in its entirety, creating a green strip from south to north, which can be walked along. On this green slope, directly under the Poniatowski Bridge, is a romantic garden, the so-called Park na Książcem (Prince's Garden). Slightly overgrown, winding and playful, it cascades down the slope towards the Vistula River, separating the centre of Warsaw above from Powiśle on the waterfront below. With the sound of traffic almost always filtering through, high arches of the bridge provide a link to the city centre in this garden. Both this topographical interface and the eastern bank of the Vistula, which has remained quite naturally green, are important oases for lingering and meeting friends. These green strips–strips because they stretch along the length of the Vistula–give the urban structure air to breathe. The Poniatowski Bridge, the crucial link between east and west, overrides the topographical shape and creates a pulsation between the two sides of the city and the riverbank. The seating sculpture picks up on this oscillation between the neighbourhoods, the ever-increasing convergence, as well as the slope towards the river, here as a place to sit and rest. The interplay of colours expresses the feeling of dynamism and energy that immediately prevails in the city. Colours that confront each other, bringing together different poles. The initial form of a ‘bridge’ of nine modules can be put together in a wide variety of combinations, inviting you to change the form, to design it yourself, to create something new from the given. The colours and shapes thus also relate directly to Katarzyna Kobro, whose works deal with the interpenetration of space and sculpture.