Please join us for a live unveiling of the final six projects created by 12 European Union Artists. In collaboration with Undercurrent and the European Union National Institutes of Culture’s New York Cluster, we have guided the creative and collaborative process between 12 artists, who were strangers at first and over the last six weeks they have developed collaborative vision to reimagine NYC post March 20,2020. To follow each team’s story please visit 10001.undercurrent.nyc

Sept 11/2020, 1pm
https://zoom.us/j/99159405929

Polish Cultural Institute New York in partnership with the Undercurrent, the Lithuanian Culture Institute, the Consulate General of Estonia in New York, Arts Council Malta in New York, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, the General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA present: 10001.undercurrent.nyc.

“10001” is a collaborative virtual project which launches on August 5 2020 at 10001.undercurrent.nyc and continues through September 12. This project is co-organized by the European Union National Institutes of Culture’s New York Cluster. Borrowing the zip code from both the Empire State Building and New York City’s Central Post Office, “10001” focuses on the collaboration of strangers and the narrative of their collective creative process using New York City as the linchpin. Coming from a variety of disciplines, twelve European Union artists who have never met each other will be randomly paired, making up a total of six teams. Through a series of Zoom sessions, each team will spend a six-week period developing a single project that will reimagine NYC post March 20, 2020.

New York City has long been a blueprint for pop culture and fiction, a metropolis amongst vertical cities, and a plinth for diversity, culture, and the arts. It has weathered and survived many unforeseen catastrophes, and even now struggles on a variety of fronts after having been the world epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the most densely populated city in the United States, we will need to adapt and evolve as families, neighborhoods, communities, and boroughs. With shelter-in-place orders, social distancing, closed country borders, and global protests for justice and racial equality, communication, exchange, and collaboration are needed more than ever. This project imagines rehabilitating NYC through collaboration. As strangers, how do we work together with what we do not know for a hopeful and better tomorrow?

As a gathering space for plural nations, cultures, languages, and beliefs, New York’s internationalist energy has flowed into the makeup of the artists in “10001.” Their practices range from moving and still visual and performing arts to music composition and film. Participating artists include: Anna Bera (Poland), Alex Camilleri (Malta), Mariella Cassar-Cordina (Malta), Saddie Choua (Flanders, Belgium), Nicola Ginzel (Austria), Justyna Górowska (Poland), Ada Van Hoorebeke (Flanders, Belgium), Ieva Mediodia (Lithuania), Luisa Muhr (Austria), Kira Nova (Lithuania), Jonas Tarm (Estonia), and Terttu Uibopuu (Estonia).

Justyna Górowska is an interdisciplinary artist creating projects on the border of art, technology and social activities, exploring the relationship between the artist’s individuality and the broad socio-political context and other areas of life. Born in 1988, she is based in Skawa in the Western Beskid mountains. Górowska attended the renowned Antoni Kenar Art High School in Zakopane (2004-2008). She graduated from the Intermedia Faculty at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (2008-2014), and in 2015, she became a PhD candidate the Multimedia Communication Faculty at the University of Arts in Poznań. She won the first prize in the 7th edition of the Samsung Art Master competition at the CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw (2010) and Grand Prix at the Festival of Young Arts ‘Przeciąg’ in Szczecin (2011). Her works have been presented in major art institutions, at international art fairs and festivals, for instance at CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, Leonardo da Vinci Museum in Milan, National Gallery of Indonesia in Jakarta, and at MOCAK in Kraków, as well as at the Inspirations Festival in Szczecin and the International Performance Festival RIAP in Quebec.

Anna Bera is a furniture designer and an artist who founded The Whole Elements (2014), a design studio and a wood workshop based in Warsaw. Dedicated to creating furniture pieces, often crafted by hand from wood, the brand is notable for its bridging of art and design, with inspiration coming from Bera’s observations of the relationship between humans and nature — from a biological, spiritual and cultural perspective. With particular focus on texture and sensory richness, The Whole Elements production process goes hand in hand with the brand’s workshop where all of Bera’s projects are implemented. As an artist, woodcarver and carpenter, Anna creates wooden furniture pieces, mainly storages and cabinets crafted by hand in limited editions or as one-offs. Her designs refer to forms drawn from the world of nature. The artist focuses on the ways the objects are used, as well as on their ritualistic significance in everyday life. She creates sculptural furniture, the form of which does not reveal the functionality, instead encouraging the users to explore and give them their own meaning. Her works were exhibited in Poland and abroad, including in Milan, Stockholm, New York and Seoul, as well as in the United Kingdom, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia and Iceland.

Undercurrent 10001 project was initiated by the Lithuanian Culture Institute and the Consulate General of Estonia in New York and co-organized by Undercurrent and Arts Council Malta in New York, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, the General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA, and the Polish Cultural Institute in New York.

Undercurrent, defined as a body of water below the surface and moving in a different direction from any surface current, is a dedicated exhibition platform for art aiming to support contemporary art practices that are contrary to prevailing trends and movements. We showcase local and international contemporary artists with an inclusive subprogram of artists and creative entities of the Baltic countries. This exchange augments our mission by providing a switchback, for a diverse and accessible platform distilling cultural perspectives in New York City. Undercurrent focuses to represent, reflect, and identify aesthetic, emotional, and philosophical complexities in the arts of our time as they are present in painting, sculpture, mixed media, film, word, and sound. We intend to highlight the existence of multilayered, multi-polar systems operating today, which can radiate openness, vulnerability, and self-reflection simultaneously.