Two site-specific media installations created for the project Theatre Tissues: Fingerprints, exploring the material memory of one of Poland's oldest theatres through archival objects, digital reconstruction, and projection mapping.
Walking in My Shoes transformed the theatre's historic shoe collection into a continuously flowing audiovisual archive. Shoes from landmark productions – from Konrad Swinarski's Dziady to performances directed by Krystian Lupa, Jan Klata, and Grzegorz Jarzyna – were digitized using 3D scanning techniques. The resulting large-scale video installation presented an endless stream of shoes flowing from the theatre's storage rooms onto the stage, evoking the invisible presence of generations of actors and performances. Each object became a carrier of memory, preserving traces of movement, performance, and theatrical history.
The second installation, Women of the Stary, employed projection mapping on the monumental portrait of Helena Modrzejewska displayed in the theatre foyer.
Portraits of women who co-created the history of the National Stary Theatre – including Wanda Zamkow, Krystyna Zachwatowicz, Ewa Lasek, Antonina Hoffman, Krystyna Meissner – entered into a visual dialogue with the historic painting, extending the institutional narrative and foregrounding the contributions of women whose artistic work has shaped successive generations of the theatre. The installation established a visual dialogue with the portrait of Helena Modrzejewska, creating a living archive of women whose artistic work has shaped the identity of the National Stary Theatre across generations.
Both installations investigate how digital media can reactivate institutional memory. They establish a dialogue between physical artefacts, architecture, archival collections, and contemporary moving images, transforming the theatre itself into an active medium of remembrance.
Theatre Tissues: Fingerprints
MICET – Interactive Museum Theatre Education Centre, National Stary Theatre in Cracow, curators: Katarzyna Peplińska-Pietrzak, Daniel Arbaczewski, Łukasz Zaleski
2024/12
