Time Capsule

Time Capsule, 2022
participatory performance
NARRACJE Festival
Gdańsk, 18-19.11.2022
Curator: Emilia Orzechowska

Citizens of far-off islands set sail to exchange necklaces and bracelets with residents of other far-off islands. The transferred objects were important because of who had owned them before, and the exchange entailed the obligation to continue the ritual. While the market economy involves exchanging goods for money, the gift economy relies on interpersonal relations. In the latter system, objects are exchanged to strengthen bonds and accumulate social capital.

During NARRACJE Festival Maryna Tomaszewska proposed a participatory project that invited the audience to place gifts in a time capsule. These small objects act as physical representations of our lives, dreams, fears, love and hate affairs. Together with the festival participants, the artist created a collection of personal trinkets that were placed in a capsule and buried in the Przeróbka suburb in Gdańsk. In line with the idea of the gift economy, everyone donating an object was given an opportunity to capture this moment in a photograph made by Alina Żemojdzin. About 500 people took part in the project.

PICTURES OF PARTICIPANTS 1
PICTURES OF PARTICIPANTS 2 

The collected objects created a symbolic monument of our time. Dug out in tens or hundreds of years, they may become an archaeological treasure or an incomprehensible scrap of history. What gifts did we leave to people from the future?

PRESS
NARRACJE#13
SZUM