BEETLE EFFECT

BEETLE EFFECT
1st year of Graphic Art
Graphic Drawing (head bodybuilding)
Atrium UAP, building B, 20, 23 Lutego Str.
7.04.2025, 12:00 – 20:00 (1-day exhibition)

Participants: Liliana Bąk, Zuzanna Dembinska, Amelia Grabowska, Natalia Grzesiak, Max Korzyniewski, Anita Kuczek, Oliwia Kużdowicz, Tomasz Lubocki, Inga Malinowska, Kalina Mitkowski, Karolina Pelczarska, Marcel Pilarczyk, Nina Sedeńko, Alicja Winiewicz, Magdalena Witkowska, Izabela Wituska, Zuzanna Zgoda
Curator: Kuba Kapral

It began with an analysis of a fragment of Andrei Platonov’s prose from the novel „Excavation” (“Wykop”), in which the author uses distorted, corrupt propaganda (socialist realist) language. In the process, we came across the potato beetle scandal from the PRL period, which began with a propaganda communiqué of the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reforms published in Trybuna Ludu on June 1, 1950. According to the communiqué, the potato beetle was dropped in mass quantities by American planes into the Baltic Sea, from where it crawled out to the coast and spread throughout the country, starting sabotage and diversionary activities aimed at socialist Poland, consisting of the greedy consumption of potato crops. This gave us room to reflect on the dimensions of propaganda and to look for such eye-pulling strategies in the present. It also prompted us to examine the intense, somewhat one-sided, and somewhat toxic love affair our country has been having with the United States since the fall of communism.

Leptinotarsa ​​decemlineata, a cosmopolitan leaf beetle, proved to be an inspiring creature and became the starting point for multi-module works inspired by the insect itself and the stories that accompany it. Each project, starting from the first, simple sketches, underwent multiple transformations, thanks to which all the realizations consist of several complementary modules/stages of development, ultimately giving a mature form of artistic work.