I tend to observe and collect information about the cities and neighborhoods where I live and work. Before I start gathering any objects, I search for what’s hidden or overlooked in everyday life there.

Damage and destruction tell a more comprehensive story, so I pay attention to what we choose to neglect in our day-to-day lives. I want to emphasize what's uncomfortable and unwanted. These objects stop me in my tracks.

The theoretical principles that guide me provide a conceptual framework for my practice, clearly defining the direction and boundaries of my actions. Therefore, the forms that interest me arise from ideational needs rather than formal or aesthetic ones.

My practice begins with the system and my disagreement with it. I strive to challenge the commercialization of art, as well as the fetishization of the artistic gesture, redirecting attention “outward,” beyond myself as an artist. I believe that the commodification of the artwork sabotages and slows down the development of art itself. Social observation, on the other hand, situates this perspective within a specific local context. I am interested in the invisibility of labor and in what is pushed to the margins of public attention: the byproducts of our era, waste, and marginalized materials that become a record of the economic and aesthetic processes taking place. Therefore, the object comes last. It represents these premises, which begin as theoretical and global concerns and end as formal research with local resonance.

After moving to New York, I realized that the art world was not the joyful, abstract playing field offering an outlet for our ideas and creativity. As in any field where money is involved, the rules are constantly changing, replacing ideological values with more profitable ones.

The Sole Result is the Game brought my previous research to a conclusion and opened up a new chapter in my practice. I started noticing the game offered by the system itself and how deeply immersed in it we have to be. In capitalism, someone’s WIN requires others to lose. It’s a system based on rivalry and a lack of fulfillment.

Both damage and dirt carry information about the object itself, as well as the broader system surrounding it. They tell a story about its disposal, the cause of its particular damage, and even the chemical reactions that have taken place over time. I think that's something an artist herself could not create from scratch.

This is visible in 15018 – 1 (2025), from my last solo show, all the work i didn't make, at Galería Gato in Lima, Peru. The installation consists of two towers of massive yellow foam bricks. These come from discarded refrigerators that have been completely stripped of their metal parts. What interests me is what caused their unusual form. People in some of Lima's most economically disadvantaged communities salvage metal components from used refrigerators, leaving only their inner shells. With this work, we witness deeper social stories and uncomfortable truths about the personal struggles and difficult living conditions of many of Peru's citizens.

Even though my works fall within the ready-made tradition, what interests me most is the trace of labor, wear, and decay: the moment when an object loses its utilitarian function and begins to serve as a medium of information, even as it is marginalized and often removed from public view. I treat this transformation as a form of critical commentary on the reality of late capitalism, a system in which even art is subject to the mechanisms of commodification and fetishization.

The selection of furniture available during the communist era was limited, so every chair and dresser reminiscent of that period was eagerly discarded as soon as people could afford to replace them.

Communism in Poland meant the suppression of civil liberties, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly. People had limited access to food and basic goods, couldn’t travel freely, and were highly dependent on the ruling party. Naturally, people wanted to bury the reminders of that totalitarian and oppressive system.

After all, we are dealing with banal, everyday objects. We know them by heart, and that familiarity brings our own experiences to the table. I am interested in creating a trigger for the viewer by presenting these objects in a particular form and state.

When these objects are removed from their original contexts and look different from what we are used to, their original purpose comes into question. Here, we encounter an object that is no longer what it once was, but instead an abstract form bearing specific traces of use and destruction. That's what I believe makes these works interesting. On the one hand, they are ordinary; on the other, completely original, because it's impossible to find exactly the same damage twice.

What we consider unnecessary and choose to throw away varies from country to country and city to city. When I left Poland in 2020, people didn’t really throw away broken household equipment. I grew up believing that if something breaks or gets too old, you fix it or give it away to somebody who needs it more. Everything was recycled and repurposed by people, often independently of municipal waste removal systems. That has changed significantly in recent years, reflecting shifts in the economy and the gentrification of Polish cities. The social fabric of historic neighborhoods is changing as demand for housing grows. Older, often disadvantaged residents are moving out of city centers, seeking peace and more affordable places to live. Apartments are being emptied and renovated, often for the first time in many decades. This is also a relatively new development: many years after communism ended, people have finally become wealthy enough to make these investments.

In 2023, I returned to Poland and was fascinated by how quickly my city had changed since I left. For my solo exhibition Dirt, which took place in my hometown of Poznań, I arranged a display of objects collected from various public and private renovation projects. Many objects carried decades of history; others were byproducts of ongoing construction. All were covered in dirt, which I saw as an additional source of information.

I came to understand how different and stratified Peru’s economy is. On the one hand, there are extremely wealthy people living in separate, luxurious neighborhoods; on the other, there are masses of people struggling to make a living. Having grown up in Europe, I am used to the majority of the population being middle class, but in Peru, I felt there was no “in-between.” Most people lack resources and opportunities, using whatever means they can to make it through the day.

I’d say there were two installations. The first was 15018 – 1, the fridge towers I spoke about earlier, and the other was 15018 – 2.

With the fridges (15018 – 1), people at the exhibition didn’t know what they were looking at, which only reinforced my assumption about how separate the realities of different social classes are. That made me want all the more to show them a part of reality they consciously avoid.

With 15018 – 2, on the other hand, the audience immediately recognized both the material and its context, and in turn taught me more about my own work. The installation consisted of rubber car parts I collected and purchased on the street. I was initially intrigued by the amount and condition of this material, as well as the seller’s approach: he wouldn’t even let me touch certain pieces in his pile of rubber. At first, I was confused about what I could and couldn’t purchase, but soon realized that I was only allowed to buy heavy, thick, and rigid rubber. What surprised me at first, however, was perfectly clear to the people who came to the opening. Flexible rubber is reused for repairs or transformed into new items, while rigid components are abandoned. Apparently, I was the only person interested in parts of tires that couldn’t be transformed into shoes or used for patching. The installation therefore consists only of the rigid elements that had been set aside during sorting.

I meant that in reference to my own practice. As you’ve just noticed, selecting a ready-made is only one part of the process. The other part comes from the object's story and the information it carries about what happened between its production and the moment I collected it. The object therefore has to bear visible traces of damage that strip it of its original function, making room for new meaning.

The logic of transportation is embedded in all of those pieces, but I wouldn’t say it determined the final composition at the gallery. It definitely made it possible to show a part of the city that is usually avoided and neglected by most residents.

Because most of my research took place in Manzanilla, an area considered dangerous due to violent crime, the gallery’s driver was reluctant to go there. We therefore decided to collaborate with a driver who could navigate these neighborhoods and transport unconventional materials without disrupting the everyday rhythms of their residents. This shift exposed transportation itself as a form of mediation, requiring social navigation as much as physical movement.

Some of the objects I was working with during my Whitney ISP fellowship seemed to me almost like archaeological finds, which is why the title also refers to the ZIP codes of the neighborhoods they came from. I wanted to examine their decay more closely, breaking it down into its constituent processes, such as chemical reactions and changes in the materials’ density and texture. I see them as testimonies of our “today” and reminders of the temporary nature of our perspective.