Chciuk, Aleksandra
visual and sound artist, she graduated with distinction from Józef Robakowski’s studio at the Łódź Film School, presenting a diploma work on Maya Deren’s experimental cinema. She works in the fields of video art, photography, and painting, as well as creating short films. In her artistic practice she takes up the subject of sound phenomena and their impact on human mental states and body reactions. She analyses the psychological and musical links between humans and nature. In her audio performances, she frequently experiments with instrument preparation techniques. She also creates site-specific installations and interactive sound objects. Her exhibitions are nearly always combined with musical happenings and concerts. She teaches numerous workshops in urban space, notably using city architecture for acoustic transformations or as a music score. Since 2019 she has run the Audiosphere Studio at the Strzemiński Academy of Art in Łódź.
Apart from presenting her works in galleries and museums such as Seoul’s MMCA, Boston’s Center for the Arts, Katmandu’s Siddhartha Art Gallery, Warsaw’s Museum of Modern Art, the Łódź Atlas Sztuki and Museum of Art, among others, she also performs at festivals of new and experimental music such as Warsaw Autumn, Instalakcje, Musica Moderna, and Musica Privata, composes or improvises live music for choreographies and films, and explores free improvisation.
She has taken part in masterclasses for lm makers and composers such as Harun Farocki’s Labour in a Single Shot and Zygmunt Krauze’s Synthesis in Radziejowice. In 2020, she qualified (in duo with Kuba Krzewiński) to take part in the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt taught by Jennifer Walshe.
Selected works: Szpilen, acrylic, gouache, tempera and objects on a high-density fibreboard (as part of the Eastern Front exhibition, Atlas Sztuki, Łódź 2012; finale of the competition Hestia’s Artistic Journey, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw 2015), End with Mud, photographs and video (individual exhibition, Fotofestiwal, Manhattan Gallery, Łódź 2013), Labour in a Single Shot: Sirens, Metallic, The Tram Dome, Police Class, video cycle (2013), The Man and His Book, video (Fotofestiwal, Art Inkubator, Łódź 2014; Fotofestiwal, Wschodnia Gallery, Łódź 2021), Rumory Orkiestra: Max’30, audio-visual performance (Fotofestiwal, Łódź Film School, Łódź 2014), Variation on Black, video (Two Shores Film and Art Festival, Kazimierz Dolny 2014), Variation on Black, audio performance (Musica Privata, Łódź 2014; WGW, Leto Gallery, Warsaw 2014),Rise Moon, video (2013–15), Pi and Sigma, audio performance (Musica Privata, Łódź 2015), Double Portrait – video (2016), Black of Granule – audio-performance (Musica Privata, Łódź 2016; Instalakcje, Nowy Theatre, Warsaw 2018), Szpilen. They’re Crawling Nobody Knows Where (individual exhibition, Punkt Odbioru Sztuki, Łódź 2017), SzpilMuzik, live sound installation (Musica Moderna, University of Music in Łódź 2018), Intersounds, audio performance (with Kuba Krzewiński, Reicher Synagogue, Czynna Gallery, Łódź 2018), Koci koci łapci, video (part of the exhibition Better to Be Rich and Beautiful, Galeria XX1, Warsaw 2018), Uni-Scores: Playscapes, interactive objects (individual exhibition, Signum Foundation Gallery, Łódź 2019), Incorporate, video for a piece by Kuba Krzewiński (2019), Chamber of Nature, video (part of the exhibition Plexus, Imaginarium Gallery, Łódź 2019), Plexus-Machine, audio performance (International Triennial of Tapestry, Central Museum of Textiles, Łódź 2019), Expedition to Find Time, video and composition (with Kuba Krzewiński, Warsaw Autumn Festival, TR Warszawa, 2020), Chopin–Walk, Chopin–Whirl (with Kuba Krzewiński, 2020), Lodzer Miflecet, photographs and sound installation (Fotofestiwal, Art Inkubator, Łódź 2021).