Variations

The outbreak of war in Ukraine in February 2022 abruptly changed the daily lives of the artist's friends and relatives in Poland. Within a few months, this country of 38 million people became by far the first to welcome more than a million war refugees on its soil. Damian Noszkowicz's relatives focused their lives on helping. They went to the Polish border, took in refugees in their apartments and even opened bank accounts in France in case the conflict spread to Poland. The perception of the world that Damian Noszkowicz thought he knew is shaken. A new reality is revealed. The term "variations" refers to musical variations, a technique by which the theme of a performance is changed almost imperceptibly. The melody, rhythm or harmony is repeated in a slightly modified form. Variations is an allegory about the duality of human nature and the duality of life events. To evoke this duality, the artist refers to Victorian herbariums, which served as collections of specimens used for the scientific study of life. Damian Noszkowicz creates his own herbarium with flower petals, but it is a herbarium contemporary with the resurgence of war in Europe. It raises questions more than it answers them. The artist presents two versions of the same petal. Which one is the real one? The variation is entrusted to an algorithm developed by the artist. The artificial intelligence modifies the color of the petal and randomly creates a new version of reality. The artist loses control of the events. This double and ambivalent work reflects the artist's questioning. The variation of the same petal resonates with the first diptychs used by the Church in the 6th century AD, which preserve, once closed, the mysteries of life.