Macau visual anthropologist Cheong Kin Man and Polish artist Marta Stanisława Sala staged a happening at the Cricoteka – Tadeusz Kantor Documentation Center of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor in Kraków, Poland, on June 28. The event brought together artists, young people, and local families in a tribute to Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein through language, the body, and imagination.
Running for approximately two hours, All Children Are Poets was presented as part of the parallel program of the group exhibition Wild Play. An Exhibition for Children and Adults, which runs through October 11. The exhibition explores creative freedom, boundless imagination, and the public’s active participation in contemporary art.
The Cricoteka is one of Poland’s leading institutions dedicated to preserving and promoting the legacy of avant-garde theater director and artist Tadeusz Kantor. For the exhibition, Cheong Kin Man and Marta Stanisława Sala presented The Image Is an Elephant, an installation that combines textiles, the human body, imagery, and fictional language as both an artistic and anthropological experience.
According to curator Justyna Droń, in the duo’s work “image, language, and the body no longer function as separate systems” but instead operate together through “rhythms, connections, and relationships,” creating a multifaceted way of communicating with the world. She added that “words, writing, and signs, as well as clothing, textiles, and art, become a language that can be continuously rewritten through the audience.”
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During the happening, participants collectively created artistic ideograms using body movements, sounds, images, textile objects, and improvised symbols. According to information released by the Camões Institute in Warsaw, the activity drew inspiration from Wittgenstein’s concept of “language games,” developed in Philosophical Investigations, to which the two artists say the work responds.
Participants included Cricoteka Director Natalia Zarzecka, curator Justyna Droń, Belarusian artists Zlata Lebedz and Yana Tsishurava, Polish painter Ludmiła Woźniczko, and other invited guests.
The event was held under the High Patronage of Austrian Consul General in Kraków Martin Gärtner and the Consulate General of Germany.
Cheong Kin Man and Marta Stanisława Sala said that the symbols and collective inspirations generated during the event will become part of an international series of art and anthropology exhibitions they are developing this year. The project will continue in Macau over the summer before traveling to Brazil, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
