Exhibition: Ewa Doroszenko, Jacek Doroszenko – Impossible Horizon

Opening: 21.11.2023, 7 p.m.
Exhibition: 22.11. – 23.12.2023

The smaller we come to feel ourselves compared to the mountain, the nearer we come too participating in its greatness. I do not know why this is so.

(Arne Næss – a Norwegian philosopher and creator of the “deep ecology” concept)

Impossible Horizon is the first exhibition in Italy of Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko – a Polish duo of intermedia artists. In their latest works (photographs, sound installations, photographic objects, videos), the Doroszenko duo deals with a classic theme in art – landscape. The works were created during artistic residencies in Kunstnarhuset Messen Ålvik (Norway), The Island Resignified LeQada (Greece), Klaipeda Culture Communication Center (Lithuania), and in Warsaw, as part of the Scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
To better understand the causes of the current environmental crisis, the artists look at the history of the Western tradition of landscape painting, in which the concept of natural landscape was defined according to the dominant worldview – as a detached component, outside the subject. In their works, Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko aim to question the separation between the issue – the observer – and the separated environment.
A significant element of the Doroszenko duo’s artistic practice is to treat sound phenomena as a full- fledged element in the field of visual art and to emphasize the importance of “deep listening” in everyday life. Accordingly, the artists are interested in the landscape’s holistic experience, which is impossible without the acoustic factor. In their mixed-media projects, the artists explore how digital images, and the latest technologies mediate the perception of the natural world. Fascinated by modern information tools and their immense potential for shaping lifestyles, Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko attempt to capture the atmosphere of the physical yet virtual present. Looking at the textures of landscapes – both natural and simulated – the artists highlight the role of photography in navigating the current world. Using Google Street View, popular computer games, travel guides and other online sources, the artists examine how contemporary digital culture is changing the perception of the landscape.

 

Their works focus on the positive impact of the landscape on human psychological well-being. As residents of Warsaw who regularly experience urban “noise pollution”, they know the need to popularize “soundscape ecology” – the science of acoustic relationships between living organisms, human and otherwise, and their environment. Referring to this therapeutic function of landscape, they present works that subtly reveal the inseparable connection between man and his natural surroundings.