The collage consists of a few scans of tree trunks available on the Internet. The reasons of those who made the effort to create three-dimensional models of damaged trees are unknown – they might be an effect of fascination with the human control over nature or they could be a kind of a memorial showing the remains of important fragments of nature.
The work by Karolina Mełnicka invokes the human intervention in the course of nature, it is a symbolic monument of the killed plants. The theme selected by the artist is a direct commentary on the recent occurrences, when, as a consequence of political decisions, hundreds of trees were cut down in Poland. The destruction of the “natural monuments” in order to sell the land where they grew easily is seen by the author as a metaphor of the contemporary oversaturated and profit-driven reality.
Karolina Mełnicka – born in 1988 in Toruń; a graduate of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in Cultural Studies (2010) and the Academy of Art in Szczecin in Multimedia (2016). Works with video art, photography, object and performance. Creates engaged pieces inspired by the Internet as a place of an objective democratic space for social statements. A co-author (together with Stach Szumski) of the Nomadic State project being an attempt to establish a non-territorial state. Lives and works in Warsaw.