UNTOUCHABLE SPACES
In response to the question in the Dyscorpia 2.1 call “What does it mean to live with an invisible danger that we ourselves may unknowingly pass on to others?”, Alicja Habisiak-Matczak made a series of charcoal sketches entitled Untouchable Spaces in which she depicts spaces of airports, train stations, underground staircases which normally are extremely crowded and noisy, full of constant motion. Suddenly all these corridors, halls and staircases became still and empty. The rails, knobs, which we normally touched almost unconsciously, now more then ever become a symbol of invisible danger, in a way they became untouchable... Alicja set her drawings in motion to render the idea of constant movement, changing realities, the multiplicity of impulses, contradicting news coming to us from all directions.
Alicja Habisiak-Matczak
Alicja Habisiak-Matczak was born in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland in 1978. In the years 1997-2002 she studied at the Faculty of Graphics and Painting at the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz. Since 2004 employed at the Strzemiński Academy and since 2016 she has been the head of the Intaglio Techniques Studio. Since 2013, together with Giuliano Santini from KAUS Urbino, she is the initiator and coordinator of the International Summer Courses of Printmaking and Textile Art PATA held at the Academy in Lodz. She is the author of 24 individual exhibitions in Poland, Italy, the Netherlands, Argentina and Canada. She has participated in more than 190 national and international exhibitions of graphic arts and drawing in such cities as: Acqui-Terme, Bangkok, Cluj, Douro, Cairo, Katowice, Kochi, Kyoto, Lodz, New York, Olsztyn, Rome, Sarcelles, Tokyo, Trois-Rivieres or Varna. She received 15 awards and honorable mentions in international competitions.