Anna Raczynska, born in 1990 in Bielsko-Biala, Poland, studied sculpture at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art in Wroclaw (2010 – 2015) and media art at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig (2018 – 2021). After graduating, she worked as a freelance artist, awarded with international residencies in France, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Bulgaria, among others. Since October 2021, she has been working as an artistic assistant at the HGB Leipzig and teaches the class for installation and space together with Prof. Joachim Blank.
Raczynska belongs to a young generation of Polish artists. Her work includes objects, digital prints, sculptures and installations. Anna Raczynska often uses everyday objects in her formal language, which she decontextualises by modifying their form, materiality and size. Alongside ironic gestures, formal and thematic explorations of the material are essential aspects of her work. The aim of each exhibition is to create its own narrative. Undoubtedly, Raczynska consciously plays with the material and refers above all to the peculiarities of the place where she works. Her art installations are a form of play that the artist deforms to give her works an unexpected turn.
As an artist Raczynska has increasingly devoted herself to socially relevant themes, thus also making direct autobiographical references: themes – which are specific in Poland due to the ongoing transformation of former socialist structures into neoliberal capitalism.
Contradictions such as “East versus West” or “Province meets City” were both the formal and thematic focus of the examination of the installation’s materials. As an allusion to this conflict, the question is raised of how we measure our social status today and to what extent this is related to our origins.
It is about the reality of life for many Eastern Europeans – whether as caregivers or butchers – who have to permanently support their economic existence far from home by commuting between East and West in order to improve their social status.
A person’s status plays an important role not only in Polish culture, but also all over the world. What has changed, however, are the media, images and symbols we use to illustrate our wealth and capital.
