Diana Lelonek

Diana Lelonek - Rubus Caesisus L. (Blackberry) on polystyrene and animal skin

Technique: Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper

Artist Biography: Diana Lelonek is a Polish contemporary artist, born in 1988 in the city of Poznan. She graduated from the Faculty of Multimedia Communication at the Poznan University of Art, where she studied photography, and later obtained her PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies at the same university. Currently working at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Lelonek is dedicated to exploring the relationships between humans and other species. His projects are critical responses to the processes of overproduction, unlimited growth and our approach to the environment. He uses photography, living matter and found objects to create works that are interdisciplinary and often appear at the interface between art and science.Lelonek's work has been exhibited at several international biennials, festivals and group exhibitions, such as the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art in Oldenburg, the Kunstraum Niederösterreich in Vienna, the Temporary Gallery in Cologne, the Tallinn Art Hall, the Culturescapes Festival in Basel, the Musee de l'Elysee in Lausanne, the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art, the Kunstmuseum Bonn and the Tinguely Museum in Basel.With his work, Lelonek invites the public to question their relationship with the natural world and to consider new forms of coexistence. In his work, he addresses issues such as biodiversity, deforestation, urbanization and climate change, exploring how these phenomena affect ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.

 

Series of photographs depicting a collection of found objects covered with mosses and plants. "Center for the Living Things" is a research para-institution founded in 2016, with the aim to examine, collect and disseminate knowledge about the new forms of humanotic nature. All the items gathered in the Institute's collection are abandoned objects, used and no longer needed products: debris from human overproduction, which have become the natural environment for many living organisms. The specimens were found in illegal waste dumps, where the transgression of human-derived objects and plant tissues takes place. These hybrids of plants and man-made objects are difficult to classify, as they are both animate and inanimate. In the process of overproduction, the incessant demand for constant updating of possessed goods is the reason why most unnecessary products seem to be out of control. "Center for the Living Things" aims to describe the mechanisms that appear in the sphere of rejection and uselessness. In this sphere, products are no longer tools used by people. Products are involved in almost all processes occurring in the biosphere, so we cannot definitively separate economic or social processes from so-called natural processes.