the inside

single-channel video / duration: 00:06:05 / 2000

THE INSIDE / video film
concept & editing: Adam Abel /camera: Hanna Pietrzak

THE INSIDE / happening
participiants: Adam Abel, Alicja Podgórska-Birkner, Harald Jagodzienski, Beata Dziekonska-Jedwabny, Maciej Kasperski, Igor Kowalewicz, Elisabeth Le Retif, Hanna Pietrzak, Anne Ochman, Anders Ruhwald, Edita Rydhag.

The Inside happening was organised on 19th August 2000, during the 36th International Ceramics and Sculpture Workshop BOLESLAWIEC 2000, in the town`s market square. Adam Abel, Maciej Kasperski and Andres Ruhwald had themselves enclosed within three clay mounds, each rising about 2 metres above the ground, and then extricated themselves from the enclosure. During the proces of building huge clay forms artists were assisted by other participants of the workshop. The underlying intention was to reverse the usual relation between the object and its maker. The fact that the mounds were built up from inside rather than outside and the process of getting out of the objects they had created turned each artist into an integral part of his work, literally and symbolically. The spectacular act of rebirth was a celebration of the creative process. Usually we create the object while remaining outside, beyond its boundaries. We impose on our creation the desired form and texture, watching our own busy hands from an external vantage point, taking what is inside for granted as it is to remain hidden from the viewer anyway. Controling the works progress, we constantly shift our focus, zeroing on details or trying to grasp the whole. We become increasingly aware of the fact that the creative process itself is an autonomous artistic creation centred around the unfolding transformation of the artist, the object and the surroundings.