The everyday and festive rituals

venue: Galeria Arsenal power station, ul. Elektryczna 13, Białystok

The main aim of the exhibition entitled The Everyday and Festive Rituals is to investigate rituals rooted in religion, tradition and culture. In addition, the exhibition gives a pretext for asking some rhetorical questions, such as: Do people need religion – and if so, why do they need it? What is the place of spirituality in the contemporary world? What are the common and festive practices referring to transcendence?

Rituals as manifestations of spirituality and faith play a crucial role in human life, as they point to a striving towards experiencing contact with God, the Absolute or the Sacrum. While everyday life is coming to be increasingly secularised, a ritual, i.e. a symbolic action which engages the imagination, emotions and moral convictions, becomes one of the methods of restoring the religious and spiritual meaning of life. The need to look for their true place within the world is universally felt by people who yearn for spirituality in everyday existence and for non-rational and metaphysical experiences.

The exhibition The Everyday and Festive Rituals presents a broad range of models for ritual actions and experiences, both in the sphere of the sacrum and in the realm of “prosaic existence”. Topics which the artists touch upon include e.g. the quest for inner peace and harmony, the spiritual pilgrimage and prayer. Selected works refer to art understood as religion and to secular rituals embedded in socio-political life.

Artists: Andrzej Dłużniewski, Andrzej Dudek-Dürer, Ryszard Grzyb, CT Jasper, Koji Kamoji, Alicja Kochanowska, Aleksander Komarov, Alexey Lunev, Joanna Malinowska, Jacek Malinowski, Tomasz Matuszak, Dorota Podlaska, Danuta Radulska, Józef Robakowski, Tadeusz Rolke, Ludgarda Sieńko, Antonina Slobodchikova

Curator: Michał Jachuła