Kinga Kiełczyńska

— b. 1972, Warsaw is an artist whose conceptual practice explores the intersection of humans and the environment. With a background in Spanish philology from Warsaw University and fine arts from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and Sandberg Institute, Kiełczyńska uses video, text, drawing, and installation to delve into these themes. Having lived abroad for many years in Amsterdam and Berlin, her work—referred to as “environments” shifts between a collective and a deeply personal, metaphysical connection with nature. Kiełczyńska often exhibits in unconventional spaces—from nudist beaches to nightclubs and forests—challenging conventional art venues. Her 2009 “Reductionist Art Manifesto” questions art’s role in an age of overproduction, advocating for processes that reflect the efficiency and interconnectedness found in nature. Recent projects, including those centred on the Białowieża primeval forest, embody this commitment to ecological processes. She lives and works in Warsaw.

Creating, for me, arises from curiosity—an exploration of natural phenomena or concepts. My pieces are often open-ended, without a plan—I never know where the work will lead me. 

In my large-scale drawings and video works, this immersion is key. The drawings feel like they spill over the edges of the paper, connecting to something beyond themselves. In my videos, digital manipulations make images morph and dissolve into each other, capturing the interconnectedness I see in nature. Nothing stands alone or stays still. It’s like trying to photograph a dense forest—nature resists framing, and so does my work.

I think of my installations as environments rather than objects. They are open systems connected to the things that brought them into existence: materials, money, labour, intellectual impulse, empathy. Everything is interconnected—like a tree in the forest is connected to all forests past and present.

This idea of environments goes way back for me. As a kid, I dug up mycelium from the forest and tried to transplant it into my grandma’s garden. I thought I was being smart, but it didn’t work. My grandma explained that the mushrooms needed the right environment. That lesson has stayed with me—art, like nature, needs the right conditions to grow.

During my studies in Amsterdam, I started working with video, filming myself in nature, often with friends, running around naked in the woods. Later, I projected these images in nightclubs, mixing them live to the sound of house and techno. Before social media turned the selfie into society’s mirror, I was already distorting my life in Europe’s clubs. Music and rhythm still influence my work; now, it’s the rhythm of nature, like the binaural sound of bees in Courtesy of Infinity (2020–2022).

Looking back, my early work with nature was naïve, like a kid discovering the forest’s magic. But as I grew older, I began to see nature as an open system, full of connections, which I now translate into my work.

I’ve always preferred spaces outside the white cube: nudist beaches, parks, forests, nightclubs. Soft Green Light (2011) was a walk through glasshouses in Kępa Zawadowska, combining stories of the area with found objects. The glasshouse became a metaphor for open systems, an environment reflecting both history and collapse, as farmers transitioned from controlled economies to decentralised systems.

In An Attempt at Soil Healing (2024), unsold apple trees, relics of capitalist excess, became part of a graduation tower—historically used for salt production, now reimagined as a symbol of ecological and economic imbalance. These works are dynamic and ephemeral, reflecting the transient nature of their materials.

I try not to take up too much space, both in my work and my daily life. I avoid using newly produced materials, preferring existing ones—whether waste or organic matter. Growing up in post-communism’s remnants, scarcity shaped my perspective. You didn’t waste things because you didn’t have much to begin with. This mindset led to my Reductionist Art Manifesto (2009), which questions the need for constant production. Do we need more stuff? My manifesto challenges the idea of art that lasts forever, advocating for art that can disappear, art that’s as light as possible on the planet—like nature’s own cycle of decay and renewal. I aim to say the most with the least use of resources.

In this spirit, I’ve “hacked” other artists’ exhibitions. It’s a form of resource sharing, using what’s already there instead of adding more. It’s an extension of my belief in minimising artistic consumption.

The idea of sole authorship feels outdated, especially in the age of the internet. Ideas spread, evolve, and take on new life through others. I’m more interested in collaboration, in the memetic nature of ideas—how they morph and grow collectively. This drove the creation of 10 Million + 1 (The Activists) (2018–19). The footage wasn’t mine—it was shot by activists in Białowieża Forest, documenting their fight to protect it. I didn’t need to create new material. The story was already there. My role was to reframe it, let it evolve naturally.

In installations like Hidden Interface (2021) and a series of cars filled with garden waste, I combine natural elements with artificial ones, reflecting our fragmented world. Nature collides with technology, the organic with the synthetic. In my work, I try to capture that unresolved friction. It’s in the unresolved that the truth often lies.

I’m also concerned with what happens to my work after an exhibition. Working with live materials means the pieces can decompose or be reused, living on in different forms. Art shouldn’t end up locked in collectors’ storage but should continue in new incarnations. I like the idea of work that doesn’t last—like Tibetan sand mandalas, blown to destruction after they’re completed, or a nurse log in the forest, decaying and giving life to new growth.

In the age of hyper-acceleration and digital entanglements, my art is a counterpoint to modernity’s relentless churn. My work is about navigating the edges—where nature meets technology, where the organic dissolves into the digital. It’s about realising that we’re part of something larger than ourselves, connected to unseen networks of influence and consequence. My art is a way to explore these connections while remaining tethered to the primordial rhythms of the natural world.

The text was written in collaboration with Romuald Demidenko (2024)

1Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, An attempt at soil healing, 2024, installation, photo Bartosz Górka/Mediocre Agency, courtesy Oolong Gallery.
2Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Białowieża chapter 1, 2017, photograph, courtesy Exile Gallery.
3Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Courtesy of Infinity, 2020-21, video still, courtesy Exile Gallery.
4Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Hidden interface (for sale), installation, 2021, photo Moritz Krauth, courtesy Exile Gallery.
5Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Hidden interface, installation, 2023, photo Vasco Vilhena, courtesy Belo Campo/ Francisco Fino gallery and Exile Gallery.
6Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Hidden interface, installation, 2023, photo Vasco Vilhena, courtesy Belo Campo/ Francisco Fino gallery and Exile Gallery.
7Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, How I sleep Knowing, installation, 2018, courtesy Exile Gallery, Palermo, Italy.
8Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Place of Power,  installation, 2018, courtesy Exile Gallery, Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw.
9Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Real Estate, 2014, courtesy Exile Gallery.
10Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Reductionist Art Manifesto, document, 2009, courtesy Exile Gallery.
11Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Reductionist Art Manifesto, video still from Pelin Tan and Anton Vidokle’s film “2084“, 2011.
12Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Soft Green Light, installation and guided tour, 2011, photo Bartosz Stawiarski, courtesy Exile Gallery and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw.
13Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Soft Green Light, installation and guided tour, 2011, photo Bartosz Stawiarski, courtesy Exile Gallery and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw.
14Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, Swamp (after Wajrak), installation, 2018-2024, courtesy Exile Gallery and BWA Gallery.
15Image: Kinga Kiełczyńska, “Xilitla”, video still, 2006.