public projects

The artist enters into a context and, using that context's own codes, momentarily manifests spaces of physical and social relations. Seen in new light, the given space allows different people and narratives to coexist. Rajkowska's projects are about displacing old meanings, noticing new cracks, sensing new vibrations.. The artist starts by entering a territory that is seemingly familiar and well defined. Without imposing any external interpretative categories, she triggers off a process of deterritorialisation, activating lines that make possible a reconfiguration. As Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari would say, she "dissolve[s] the identity of the place", so that, "no one will recognise us any more when we come back".

This is made possible by a unique modality of Rajkowska's actions. It can be understood by referring to Derrida's notion of the "event." An event, or something that was impossible to invent and yet it happened. Something that acts in the mode of "potentiality" and not of "maybe." The artist initiates a process of the co-formulation of the space of the event by people within her reach.

At this point, it is worth quoting Bojana Pejic who, referring to public art, stresses the fundamental difference between "telling people what to think and enabling them - allowing them - to think." This highlights another element of Rajkowska's practice. Her improvisational formula implies no control on her part over the processes. This, in turn, exposes her projects to the risk of failure. Like in the case of the volcano which is unlikely to be built due to the lack of agreement. Or like in the case of one of Rajkowska's most important works, Maja Gordon Goes to Chorzów (2006) film . Its protagonist and co-author returns to her home town in search for places, people and events she had known, but also for herself. Memory is to be a pretext here for consciously building one's present identity. But, despite her frequently repeated willingness to subject herself to a process of vivisection, Maja Gordon reproduces only the usual masks and façades. She thus confirms that sometimes nothing happens even if one very much wants for something to happen.

Magda Pustoła

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