MONIKA SZPENER | WORKS | LANDeSCAPE POL
 

LANDeSCAPE came to being in 2015, and was a commentary on the other side of consumer society’s lifestyle – cult of work, rat race, corporationism and technocratism. The installation was made for the Technopark Pomerania – Science and Technology Park in Szczecin – and can be found in the main hall of the office building at 6 Cyfrowa Str. It is a public building allocated by the city for start-up support programs. The building is mostly occupied by digital technology and IT start-ups.

It was a very challenging work and also stretched in time; the project took more than six months and underwent many phases. Moreover, the artist - Monika Szpener - had to take into account various interests, opinions and stringent regulations (i.a. building and fire prevention). Eventually, a work of 3,6 × 12 × 1,2 meter came into existence taking up one of the interior walls of the building. It is a white, backlit installation, a sort of bas relief made of elastic PVC membrane onto which I placed tiny architectural models of humans facing one direction and gradually congealing into a crowd, which “stops” in one line before the wall ends.

The title LANDeSCAPE stands for a „fleeing landscape” or „escaping the horizon”. The motif of humans alludes to a crowd of business sector employees competing for upward mobility, colloquially called “corporate rats” or “corporate lemmings” who inspired this work. In pop-culture lemmings – small mouselike rodents with huge reproductive ability – connote mass suicide. This is what a lemming symbolized to Scandinavians already a few centuries ago. Scandinavians tried to explain sudden changes in the size of lemming population and made a hypothesis that they have a instinctive drive towards self-annihilation to prevent an over-growth of their own population. One may also recall a computer game, quite popular in the early ‘90s, which explores this very motif - the not too sharp-witted lemmings push forward despite danger, and the player’s task is to clear the way for them. The meanings inherent in the cultural figure of lemmings accurately capture my intentions.

Placing the installation in the hall of a building dedicated to support corporate business was meant to inspire reflection on what sense it makes to chase success day after day. It is a sort of memento – memento homini: remember about yourself, as you are more than just a representative of a profession entrusted with some functions; remember about another human being since it is he who makes you someone more than a replaceable “corporate lemming”.