WHITE PLAGUE

The installation in Sokolowsko was created on the wall of a former morgue, built next to the sanatorium for people suffering from tuberculosis. Both buildings are in neo-gothic style and after World War II have become run-down.

In my work I used the names of tuberculosis and its types, in various languages. They sound mysterious, some have a metaphorical character. Looking at the low building, hidden among trees, with its roof covered with moss, I thought that tuberculosis, through its incurability, was a romantic disease to a certain extent. Often young and beautiful heroes of 19th century novels die from it. Hence the idea of placing the mysterious inscriptions on the building. Their colour corresponds with the greenish layer on the brick walls.

An element of the installation is also a quotation from Gerhart Hauptmann's novel "Wanda", which in its first version was entitled "Demon". Hauptmann stayed in Sokolowsko and supposedly wrote the novel there. The quotation is: "She murdered me in a hundred ways, so that I do not have even the slightest sign of life". It refers to a young "fallen" woman - an angel and a demon in one. In the context of the place however, the inscription taken out of the context of the book, generates new meanings.