F. Marek Modzelewski

Artist Statement

My work speaks to a cruel history of human failure, exploitation, exile, and erasure, as well as the deceptions we fatalistic acquiesce to keep on living. Yet it engenders a hope for the fundamental restructuring of our currently inescapable capitalist realism. 
 
Expansive research into forgotten histories, ethnography, and the land allow for the construction of interventions, provocations, and immersive experiences. These simulations—these fictions I create—allow for challenges to the accepted understanding of the world and our collective reality, whether it concerns the climate, industrialization, capitalism, or oppression. My work creates environments, moods, and sensations for exploring new truths, community, shared learning, and the potential for fermenting change. 
 
This practice leverages the tradition of what Poles call “Praca Organiczna” (Organic Work), a means of developing productive habits and skills to ensure the continuation of the history and cultural values of a people while under occupation, so they may be passed on and take root again. Classical fine art merges with technology, land art, craft-making, and sound to form pathways for alternative narratives, often using moments in the past to reflect the most pressing problems of the present and positing alternative ways of experiencing them and seeking solutions.