_ARTIST STATEMENT
As a common thread weaving through fields of study spanning culture and religion, archaic communities and life in postmodernity, art, pop culture, and altered states of consciousness, one thing emerges: weight—the weight of reality as a consequence of awareness. We have taken the world upon our shoulders, and with each generation, its burden grows heavier, surpassing our capacity to carry it. We seek forms of relief, but archaic methods no longer align with our reality. The statistics on mental illness serve as a stark illustration of the crisis we face as humanity.
Religion has never been a form of relief for me—probably because, for me, the mind always mediates reality first, before the body. I sought alternative ways to lighten the load. That’s how a hybrid began to emerge: neurobiology, psychology, mythology, and ritual; the body, a return to the body; intuitive action and magical thinking—but not detached from the physical reality we inhabit. For a long time, I tried to rethink the world, to redesign it with the full awareness of what utopia truly is. To find solutions that must exist in a reality as malleable as ours.
In my helplessness, I saw the beauty of the slow process of evolution, in which our entire lives are but a fleeting moment. The world existed before me, and it will exist after me. I no longer seek revolution. I want to discover how to survive in postmodernity/late capitalism, not lose my mind, and become the kind of human humanism speaks of.
I use photography, words, installations, and events as spaces—I don’t confine myself to a single medium, and I doubt I ever will. It’s the thought that holds beauty; the medium is merely a tool. I’m drawn to hapticity, to the idea of returning to sensation, to anchoring oneself in the body as an internal compass. We are immersed in a web of connections, entangled in reality. Our decisions and actions ripple outward, their impact growing over time. Thoughts spread like viruses. Have I mentioned that information is beautiful?
My communication stretches between intellectualization, memes, and awe. I want to create works that reach the masses—works that can be felt and understood on a subconscious level, like a good advertisement. I want us to finally stop patting ourselves on the back, congratulating ourselves on awareness that changes nothing. I want to plant a thought that quietly takes root, making people doubt and challenge, question and seek.
I just wanna make you think.
Our decisions and actions ripple outward, their impact growing over time. Thoughts spread like viruses. Have I mentioned that information is beautiful?
C R C L M V T.
Ula Kocjan. Born in Kraków, Nowa Huta, PL. Currently lives and work in Warsaw, PL.
EXHIBITIONS
2023: Object: Paradise, Pasaż Bielaka, Krakow, PL; Sunday Afterglow, Galeria Przyszła Niedoszła, Warsaw, PL; Afterglow, Elementy, Warsaw, PL.
2022: ARS LATRANS Festival Y2K, Hype Park, Krakow, PL.
2021: WhoMan x OEES (Open Eyes Economy), ICE Krakow, PL.
2018: Cracow Photo Fringe: Pierwiastek Ludzki, Ucieczka z LA, Tytano, Krakow; Głębia spojrzenia, Rynek Główny 24, Krakow; MUST SEE, Centrum Kreatywności, Warsaw; Krainy, Eszeweria, Krakow, PL.
AWARDS
2019: 3rd Place, European Student Challenge for project of interdisciplinary art festival, Frankfurt am Main, GER
2018: Honorable Mention, 9th Edition of National Photography Contest PORTRAIT2018, Warsaw, PL; 3rd Place, 9th Edition of the National Student Photography Contest Depth of Gaze, Krakow, PL.
GRANTS
2021 Stypendium Popierania Twórczośc
2020 Financial support from the Department of Culture and National Heritage in Krakow