Magda Stawarska (Imagine Otherwise),Used

A critical biography of artist Magda Stawarska via a series of journeysfrom the streets of Istanbul to the canals of Venice and across the waters of Zanzibar.For nearly two decades, Polishborn, UKbased artist Magda Stawarska has explored the threshold of memory, the sanctioned shape of history, and the active experience of listening. Through sound and performance, moving image, photography, painting, and printmaking, the artist unfolds overlooked and contested narratives of the past through her practice of inner listening.Stawarskas distinct approach to artmaking often begins with explorations of cities. Traversing selfdirected routes, the artist has often been compared to a flaneurmoving through each site, cultivating a rhythmic score that reveals a densely layered urban topography. These situated scenes become the basis for a distinct form of languageone of conjured imaginaries. The artist and her carefully chosen collaborators unbuckle the seams of the aural landscape, using personal reflection and language, which the artist uses to create installations that constellate active feelings.These processes evolve, layer upon layer, in the studio and in the public realm, illuminating a palimpsest of dissonance: A discordant score that pierces the very concept of time. In this book, author and curator Omar Kholeif, offers an introductory field guide into the artists practice. Structured as a travelogue through Stawarskas various journeys, readers will venture from the streets of Istanbul to the canal sides of Venice to the waters of Zanzibar. The second volume in the Imagine Otherwise series, Kholeif argues that in Magda Stawarskas art, one can find the specificity and detail of the ocular in the field and tempo of listening.Concluded with an afterword by TurnerPrize winning artist, Lubaina Himid CBE RA.Published by Sternberg Press in collaboration with artPost21