concept, photography, video: Alicja Lilianna Szpila

music: Łukasz Poleszak

sculpture: Marta Klara Sadowska

 

 

field recordings: Łukasz Poleszak

 

Grota (the cave), a sacred place that constitutes a break in the homogeneity of space; an opening that is a passage from one cosmic region to another, from heaven to earth, from earth to the underworld; the great womb hosting rituals for centuries. 

The projects explores the relationship between humans and space, in context to the notion of home, yet not necessarily as a physical space. The home is often associated with rootedness, security, stability, shelter, comfort, and identity. Many communities find refuge by creating secret society outside of the rapidly modernising world by affiliating with landscapes, memories, history and rituals. This can be traced back to the human’s relation with the cave, that in all cultures and in almost all epochs has been an asylum, a symbol of a life-death cycle. In a different light, losing a home can leave an individual ungrounded, becoming in both literal and figurative sense, an entry point to one’s connection with oneself, the soul and the body.

2021