Pawel Mendrek erforscht in seinen Arbeiten den Mechanismus der De-konstruktion von Bildern. Systematisch abstrahiert der Künstler die Realität. In dieser Serie arbeitet der Künstler mit Acryl und Bleistift auf Pappkarton.

outsiders

How to live with displacement. With something strange that springs inside us…

For the start — a short lecture — Bernhard Waldenfels writes in his book “Phenomenology of the Alien: Basic Concepts ” Problem of an alien begins with naming. Nothing more ordinary then the word “alien” and its variations and derivatives such as “alien” stranger/foreigner)”, alien language, to alien, alienate or alienage or alienism. Right when we try to express the word “alien” in other languages, we come across a diversity that allows to distinguish three significative nuances and relevantly — three significative contrasts.

Alien, firstly, is something that exists outside of its own area as something external, what is opposed to internal (…).

Alien, secondly, is something that belongs to the alien in opposition to one’s own. To this relation also belongs a word “alienatio”, what in legal context is interpreted as an ‘exteriorization’ (Entäußerung), and in clinical context depicts social pathologies such as alienation/estrangement (Entfremdung).

Alien, thirdly, is something of the other kind, different, strange, peculiar (…) in opposition to something familiar. The opposition external/internal indicates the place of the alien, the opposition alien/one’s own indicates possession, and the opposition strange/familiar — the mode of understanding.”

There is such a peculiar force that pushes us towards the other/alien place… A different place allows us to see ourselves in someone else’s gaze and question, eventually, our own otherness — our identity that reveals itself in the presence of something alien.

text by Malgorzata Szandala