‘I’m a hunter, a dangerous common. I smell humus and hot iron. I smell earth-metal and red-sorrow.’
Laurent Odelain, 2021, enwriting in progress
French artist Laurent Odelain opens the door to his studio to share a certain stage of his work in progress conducted during his three-month artistic residency at LAZNIA 2 CCA. We invite you to visit the artist in the workshop room no. 24 on the first floor of the CCA LAZNIA 2 building in Nowy Port, December 21 2021 from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Artist about his work:
Facing the drifts of violent and biocidal globalised capitalism, I immerse myself in a poetic echo around research combining totemic construction, writing, images of the territory, colors and absurd gestures gleaned from the eyes of the night, the toxic clouds and the damaged sea.
In this city of industries, a port haunted by history fortunately surrounded by a powerful nature – sea, sands and forests – where wildlife is still present, I assemble forms and sensations.
Two monstrous entities appear. On the one hand, the Gdańsk thermic power plant located in the heart of the agglomeration, spatial landmark that can be seen everywhere, which spits without stopping a sublime and questioning plume. On the other hand, an assemblage, an animal form, a dynamic trophy, relic of a wild return to our upcoming ruins.
I try to make resonate in the night which prowls a fear which invades me and seems too sure of itself to be only a sensation. I fidget so that the imprint of this deleterious power is one of resistance.
The idea is to sew a video-form to a text about my experiences in Gdańsk and the narratives that emerge from them in front of this strange period. I formulate a poetic statement that rises up in the face of fascistic realities generated by unhealthy political systems, multiplying everywhere in such a staggering way that appropriate action seems petrified even though it is of the utmost emergency.
I present the visual and concrete materials gleaned here in the last three months and the main figures that emerge from them. This weaving will be on the loom still for a few months.
More about the artist:
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The residency of Laurent Odelain takes place in the frames of artist residency exchange program initiated in 2011 by Apollonia – European Art Exchanges association in Strasbourg, City of Strasbourg, City of Gdańsk and LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art.