Marta Zgierska “Idle motion”

Opening: 10.05.2025 (Saturday) at 6:00 PM.
Place: Labirynt Gallery, Księdza Jerzego Popiełuszki Street 5, Lublin
Language: event in Polish, translation into Polish Sign Language by Ewelina Lachowska, translation into Ukrainian by Volodymir Dyshlevuk, translation into English by Hubert Bania
On view until: 15.06.2025 (Tuesday-Sunday, 12.00-19.00)
Admission: PLN 8 full-price ticket, PLN 4 concession ticket (opening: free)

Curator: Katarzyna Sagatowska

Idle motion is a state of suspension – a space where action does not lead to a change, energy dissipates in the void. It is a stall in the system in which the effort does not result in progress. It’s a pulse with no effect, a spinning wheel that does not set anything into motion.

The exhibition connects photography and spatial installations in which the body confronts limitations, repetition and tension. In the context of increasing social and ecological instability, it becomes a reflection fatigue, loss of agency and an attempt to find a state which wouldn’t be solely a waste of energy.

At the forefront of the exhibition is the motif of desertification – sand grinds in the teeth and settles on the lips, the weight builds up from within. It’s a story about personal failure, cultural wilting and loss of direction. Idling does not only focus on the landscape, it also correlates with female body – exhausted by expectations, subjected to the rhythm which does not lead to regeneration. The exhibition strips the womanly experience of fertility – biological and creative.

It is also a reflection on the process: on struggling with matter, thoughts and one’s own stagnation set at the backdrop of success-driven culture, constant rush and often superficial productivity. There are no spectacular gestures here. It is a monotonous fight against entropy, repeated attempts to act despite the realization that effort does not guarantee results.

Meanwhile the desert is simply indifferent, stretched in time and space like canvas from which someone has erased all the symbols. Every step sinks into volatile ground, sand gets into the eyes, and chapped lips recall the craving, thirst that cannot be quenched. Desert is a space of bewilderment, fading memory, illusions and increasing delirium. The only thing around and in the core is the emptiness. There are no pathways – only the marks, which the hot wind covers faster than they can be left behind.

Exhibition as part of the project “Simple questions – difficult answers”

Subsidized by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund.