Postcards Dropped on the Way Home by Tomasz Szrama
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"Postcards Dropped on the Way Home"
by Tomasz Szrama
01. - 24.08.2025
Opening/Avajaiset 31.07.2025 18:00 – 20:00
When I talk about my home, my relatives ask me which one do I mean? Is it the one in Poland, where I was born, or the one in Helsinki, where I have lived and worked for almost 3 decades?
The situation is complicated by the fact that in connection with my main field of work I travel a lot. I have presented my actions on every continent except Antarctica. I have performed in a city as far north as Nuuk in Greenland, as far south as Punta Arenas in Patagonia or as far from Helsinki as Dunedin in New Zealand. During every trip, a particular place of accommodation becomes my home for a brief moment. I enjoy my nomadic ways of creating art, yet so many of these actions are only ever viewed by a very limited number of people at the moment and the photographs only ever portray a limited understanding of the work.
This exhibition combines pictures from my numerous performances around the world, alongside the fresh analog records and objects used for the actions in the gallery.
I predominantly work with action art. Engaging the audience without prior consent, I create dynamically 'choreographed' situations to share a common experience, to bring forth the essence of the situation in any given context or moment. These sequences of images are ephemeral in every respect. Few traces of them remain - photographic documentation has been the key way my work has been archived over the past years. Usually, when I return from a festival, I choose just one picture from the performance I have just performed and post it on social media along with a public 'thank you' to the organizers. Since it is impossible to capture the plot or the dramaturgy of an action stretched over time in a single picture, I try to choose a technically correct photo that is, above all, intriguing, question-provoking and in which the context of the place is captured. In this sense, these posts play a role similar to that of postal cards, from which, after all, we also learn so little about a given context. I intend to show a large selection of such photographic documentation in the form of standard postcards.
The picture postcard is an ephemeral form of communication that seems to me a mobile artefact similar to performance art.
In the course of my actions, I am unlikely to have the head or time to think about its documentation. During this exhibition, I will expand beyond my usual performance practice to not just consider the ephemeral audience but to create performance works with the direct purpose of developing new photographic works, reflecting on the complex nature of the relationship between live performance and photography. This will happen by collaborating with Antti Ahonen who will take analogue images of the performances which will happen during the exhibition.
In 2022 I had a previous exhibition at the Entropia gallery in Wroclaw, Poland called 'Postcard sent on the Move'. This time I would like to present a slightly different, larger selection of documentation and a completely different live performance set in Helsinki - my second home.
Thanks to the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) for supporting the exhibition.
Tomasz Szrama (b. 1970 in Poland) graduated in 1998 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland. Currently he lives in Helsinki, Finland. Szrama shifts between multiple disciplines, including photography, video, action and other time-based works. Regardless of the medium, a dominant thread, common in his work is the use of his own body and methods of performance art, which he has practiced since 1993. Characteristic features of his actions are the use of spectators, active participation of the audience and improvisation. Such a strategy embeds his presentations into the tradition of understanding performance art as a process art, where the very moment of creation is essential. His work touches on themes of nature, travel, trust in interpersonal relationships, and the ever present potential for personal failure.
Szrama has been regularly performing internationally in numerous events and festivals in almost 40 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, North and South America. He works both in institutional contexts, venues such as the Museum Reina Sofia, Göteborgs Konsthall, Scandinavia House NYC, Bangkok Art Centre, Adam Art Gallery in Wellington and in unique locations such as the deck of an aircraft, a ferry boat, a village in the Mexican desert, a yurt in the Mongolian steppe, an ocean shore in Greenland.
Further he has curated over 50 live art events and festivals. In 2008-2016 he worked as a producer, technical manager and was responsible for organizing live art events at Helsinki International Artist Project - HIAP.
He was a working grant recipient from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland for the year 2016, 2022, the years 2018–2020 as well as 2025–2029, from the Kone Foundation for 2017 and the Finnish Cultural Foundation for 2021. Currently gives lectures and offers workshops (i.e UNIARTS, SAMK, NOVIA, Art School MAA).
by Tomasz Szrama
01. - 24.08.2025
Opening/Avajaiset 31.07.2025 18:00 – 20:00
When I talk about my home, my relatives ask me which one do I mean? Is it the one in Poland, where I was born, or the one in Helsinki, where I have lived and worked for almost 3 decades?
The situation is complicated by the fact that in connection with my main field of work I travel a lot. I have presented my actions on every continent except Antarctica. I have performed in a city as far north as Nuuk in Greenland, as far south as Punta Arenas in Patagonia or as far from Helsinki as Dunedin in New Zealand. During every trip, a particular place of accommodation becomes my home for a brief moment. I enjoy my nomadic ways of creating art, yet so many of these actions are only ever viewed by a very limited number of people at the moment and the photographs only ever portray a limited understanding of the work.
This exhibition combines pictures from my numerous performances around the world, alongside the fresh analog records and objects used for the actions in the gallery.
I predominantly work with action art. Engaging the audience without prior consent, I create dynamically 'choreographed' situations to share a common experience, to bring forth the essence of the situation in any given context or moment. These sequences of images are ephemeral in every respect. Few traces of them remain - photographic documentation has been the key way my work has been archived over the past years. Usually, when I return from a festival, I choose just one picture from the performance I have just performed and post it on social media along with a public 'thank you' to the organizers. Since it is impossible to capture the plot or the dramaturgy of an action stretched over time in a single picture, I try to choose a technically correct photo that is, above all, intriguing, question-provoking and in which the context of the place is captured. In this sense, these posts play a role similar to that of postal cards, from which, after all, we also learn so little about a given context. I intend to show a large selection of such photographic documentation in the form of standard postcards.
The picture postcard is an ephemeral form of communication that seems to me a mobile artefact similar to performance art.
In the course of my actions, I am unlikely to have the head or time to think about its documentation. During this exhibition, I will expand beyond my usual performance practice to not just consider the ephemeral audience but to create performance works with the direct purpose of developing new photographic works, reflecting on the complex nature of the relationship between live performance and photography. This will happen by collaborating with Antti Ahonen who will take analogue images of the performances which will happen during the exhibition.
In 2022 I had a previous exhibition at the Entropia gallery in Wroclaw, Poland called 'Postcard sent on the Move'. This time I would like to present a slightly different, larger selection of documentation and a completely different live performance set in Helsinki - my second home.
Thanks to the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) for supporting the exhibition.
Tomasz Szrama (b. 1970 in Poland) graduated in 1998 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland. Currently he lives in Helsinki, Finland. Szrama shifts between multiple disciplines, including photography, video, action and other time-based works. Regardless of the medium, a dominant thread, common in his work is the use of his own body and methods of performance art, which he has practiced since 1993. Characteristic features of his actions are the use of spectators, active participation of the audience and improvisation. Such a strategy embeds his presentations into the tradition of understanding performance art as a process art, where the very moment of creation is essential. His work touches on themes of nature, travel, trust in interpersonal relationships, and the ever present potential for personal failure.
Szrama has been regularly performing internationally in numerous events and festivals in almost 40 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, North and South America. He works both in institutional contexts, venues such as the Museum Reina Sofia, Göteborgs Konsthall, Scandinavia House NYC, Bangkok Art Centre, Adam Art Gallery in Wellington and in unique locations such as the deck of an aircraft, a ferry boat, a village in the Mexican desert, a yurt in the Mongolian steppe, an ocean shore in Greenland.
Further he has curated over 50 live art events and festivals. In 2008-2016 he worked as a producer, technical manager and was responsible for organizing live art events at Helsinki International Artist Project - HIAP.
He was a working grant recipient from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland for the year 2016, 2022, the years 2018–2020 as well as 2025–2029, from the Kone Foundation for 2017 and the Finnish Cultural Foundation for 2021. Currently gives lectures and offers workshops (i.e UNIARTS, SAMK, NOVIA, Art School MAA).
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