Freedom is an illusion
/ Art / Freedom is an illusion / Artist statement
“Once, I received a Matryoshka doll as a gift . It was beauti ful, wooden, and hand-painted. Additi onally, this doll was like an onion, with several layers! Inside one doll, another one was hidden. And so on, from the largest to the smallest, from the smallest to the largest. However, despite its charm, I quickly grew bored of this toy. I couldn’t dress it, hug it, or create new dolls because the parts of one didn’t fi t into another. The doll ended up in the corner. Looking at this frame, it is impossible to resist the impression that what we see is not everything we should see. The fi sh suff ocates, the model suff ocates, the arti st suff ocates… We all suff ocate… Or perhaps, it’s the awareness that our superiority over this fi sh is utopian? An imaginary belief that we have more rights, that more is possible for us, that our brain is smarter, our glass house bigger… We move from the aquarium to the terrarium, from the terrarium to the enclosure… From one box to another, what does it matt er if it’s pretti er when it’s sti ll just a damn box! And freedom died for the fi rst ti me when, ironically, people began to fi ght for it. The second ti me, we buried freedom when, for our own safety, we handed over the reins of our lives to beings in uniforms of all kinds. We are like Matryoshka dolls; we ourselves do not know what lies within us. Day by day, we fi ll certain patt erns that everyone has absorbed with mother’s milk. We live to live, and we feel so free and happy that, from this joy, once a year, we go on vacati on (for a while). Isn’t it wonderful? To take a pass to escape, even if just for a moment? Is it possible? And the fi sh says bul bul…”- Marta Wróbel
Kamila J Gruss
28/06/2021 Słupsk