Agata

Steven Jouwersma43min

Christina Stadlbauer

00:00

So yeah, thank you very much for finding time to do this with me. I would like to ask you first. Because you have a background in many different things in literature and dance and choreography, and you like to work as a performer and as a dramaturg, but you're also an author. So maybe we can start because this podcast is also about museums and the future of museums. What is your favourite museum? And maybe you want to tell a bit about it and describe how it is? And also describe what you like about it? Or what how it inspires you,In what way?

Agata Siniarska

00:39

Oh, well, it's, it's a little bit hard for me to, to answer that. Because I, always have problems with museums and with galleries. And because I don't understand the time horizon that is there. So sometimes I really want to pass through the corridor, or I just want to pass by the artwork, but knowing that somebody was spending lots of time doing it, it also feels unfair. So I never know, how much time should I commit to the museum visit. And many times, also physically, I feel that I am extremely tired that museums are overcrowded with artworks. And then I don't know if I can take a break or not. So it's always for me, and choreographically problem how, how things are happening, and what's the time, how the time is proposed there. But my favourite Museum at the moment is the Museum of Art, in Lodz in Poland, mainly because I am preparing the project with them. And it's the first museum that I had a chance to see their magazines, and to see their storage, also the conservation procedures. And that for me opened a completely different view on museum. Because when I got invited, I struggled a lot with all the protocols, how you should be - how you how you need to place the sculptures, what is possible, what no - what is work of art, how you need to deal with it, what's the transport of the work of art, et cetera, et cetera. But then when I could enter from the backstage, it suddenly became an amazing space. And I think this is way more interesting than many times the exhibition. Because, you know, what was fascinating for me, is that the artworks are sitting together on special shelves, or wardrobes, or whatever. And, of course, they are catalogued, but I wonder, who decides which sculptures are sitting close to each other and if they talk to each other, if there is a silence between them, if they become a neighbour or, or a kinship, all these things suddenly became very vivid to me. And, also the way how they need to be checked, or how people are taking care of them. And which ones are more abandoned which ones spend more time in the storage than when they go to the exhibition, do they really want to be exhibited or the artists want them to be exhibited? Who decides? No one asks them. And then of course, this whole material part of them and that actually the matter really wants to change, but the Conservation Department really wants to keep them, freeze them, like out of time and out of place. And they fight with time. It's also fascinating to me that we are thinking globally, that as a human - humankind, we are just a comma in the timeline of the world. But at the same time, we are still trying to freeze the time believing that these artworks will be seen by other generations and so ... That's my moment with the museum.

Christina Stadlbauer

04:47

Yeah, I like it very much especially the conservation and that it actually goes against nature because nature is - time is just changing everything and we are trying to preserve and then it becomes a bit stiff also, and it loses its life, somehow if we keep on preserving things the way that they were at some point.

Agata Siniarska

05:08

And actually interesting also the that the biggest problem is contemporary artwork. Because the old artworks, they were usually made by marble or by bronze, and the Conservation Department already knows the procedures how to deal with it. And usually these are very strong material that are pretty safe, let's say. But then after the war, first of all, there was lots of poor materials because people didn't have anything else.

Agata Siniarska

05:08

And then, of course, all this interest in plastic and all this polluting materials that suddenly conservation people from Conservation Department, they need to learn how to deal with them, what new procedures for how to conserve them. And so it's a very, even though that is a conservation and sounds like stiff to freeze - but this is a very vivid science at the moment. And all the time experimenting, and many times asking a question, what is more important, the material of the artwork, or let's say a content of the artwork. What needs to be, for example, reconstructed or what can go away, but somehow it stays in a favour of the theme or of the content of the work. And that's something that they need to - as a group of people - they need to decide together. And especially that if they can't ask the artist anymore: What to do? It's very interesting, because it's aesthetics with ethics, at the same time.

Christina Stadlbauer

06:36

Yes, yeah, it's very interesting. I once was at a conference, and they were talking about the difficulty of digital artworks, and how, as a museum, they have to constantly, they have to store it somehow. And they have to constantly put it from one hard drive to another and make sure that the data doesn't get lost and doesn't deteriorate. So yeah, indeed, it's it's a very, this department I think, is going to get bigger and bigger, because you still need the old. I mean, the old knowledge, but you also add new materials all the time. So you need new knowledge. So I guess we'll all as you say, it's a very vivid department.

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