Valentin Tszin performing Schizophrenie
at Butohpolis - International Butoh Art Festival in Warsaw
Music: Daniel Williams
Video: L A K J I (Laura Polanska)

Laura Polańska is Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist focused on film, photography and installation art, born in the South of Poland. Her work often touches upon subjects related to tensions and deep connections on the line nature-human, transcendence, primeval rituals, femininity and body as a transgressive power.

She obtained titles Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Social Communication at the University of Wroclaw and the University of Postdam, and Master of Arts in Film and Photography at the University of Wroclaw and Freie Universität Berlin. She is currently doing her second Master of Fine Arts at the University of Arts Poznan [Intermedia Photography].

Summarize your work in one word?
Plasmatic

What inspires you to continue making work?

Inspiration always comes from within. All that touches you is transformed by you and then expressed. Every second of my life and everything I come in contact with can inspire me to create art, it's like breathing — subconscious mechanism that’s always there and keeps you alive. I personally enjoy mind games and anything that cannot be fully described or touched. The dichotomy of colliding ideas, materials, forms, and abstract realizations that are actually very physical, but in themselves represent something beyond comprehension. I have always considered transformation, rites of passage, anything approaching in-between states of both body and mind such as dreams, hallucinations, near death experiences, everything that connects you with all possible futures, pasts and presents as the key themes in my work. Seeing my body as a part of world that’s constantly decaying and regenerating in trillions of different forms is also a big thing to me.

What are you currently working on at the moment?

I am currently working on a project that explores themes of trauma, trace and memory.

Who inspires you most to push your work further?

The artists around me are certainly a great inspiration, but what really pushes me further is the need to get to a place I've never been before, to open doors that I know deep down are waiting for me.

If you could say anything to your former self, regarding your art practice, that would help you progress. What would it be?

I would definitely start expressing myself much earlier, not thinking about how my family would perceive it, and work on destroying the self-doubt and self-criticism that really blocks you from experimenting and going further.

You can find more of Laura’s work here and you can follow her here