Dorota Detlaf

As an interdyscyplinary artist, in my practice I explore layered materiality, the fragmentation of memory, and the interplay between destructive and transformative processes, blending political and intimate themes. I examine existential objects, a notion derived from Jolanta Brach-Czaina's writings, therefore I’m interested in how objects of art can carry a meaning over and through the intangible and obscure. My work is rooted in attentiveness. Drawing from Jerzy Grotowski’s theory of poor theatre, which emphasizes performer-beholder relationship of perceptual communion and a bare laboratory situation, I incorporate movement, breath, and sound training into my work, merging embodied research with material investigation, whether the material is body, word, clay or fire. I’m fascinated by the permeability of forms and the concept of palimpsest, which implies superposition as a characteristic inherent in ‘memory objects’. The concept demonstrates the gradual accumulation and transformation of successive sequences of actions, which lead to a new quality. The hypertext invites the viewer to engage in a relational reading and begets the question of hidden rhythms, hence inaccessible movements and temporalities. I'm also part of the artistic community at Buitenplaats Brienenoord in Rotterdam where the main theme orbits poetic activism.