opening: May 16 (Fri) 6:00 PM
May 16 – June 28, 2025
curators: Ida Dziublewska, Gabi Skrzypczak
installation: Jan Jurkiewicz, Piotr Surma
In her latest works, Edna Baud explores the tension between the departure from materiality and its inevitable return. Every day we seamlessly enter into the role of users of technology, losing awareness of its material foundations. We see as most valuable the solutions that are light, invisible, instinctive, which act as extensions of our limbs. However, this apparent erosion of materiality does not mean its actual disappearance – we merely shift the weight of infrastructure far beyond our perception.
Material difficulties go hand in hand with the development of technologies that appear ephemeral, but attempts to move away from materiality always involve its return. We see again the machines behind it, the complexity of infrastructure that grows beyond individual control. Baud situates her work within this tension, portraying technology as an autonomous force rather than a tool in human hands. Her works make extensive use of cold, monochromatic tones, and smooth surfaces. Human figures appear only sporadically, depicted using the same visual language as the objects – frozen in process, equal to machines, tools, and matter. Baud’s works prompt the question: Why do we run from the fact of being machines among machines?
Technology has taken over not only our physical tasks but also cognitive functions: memory, navigation, communication. Although this might be seen as a loss, it is rather an extension into new, non-human agencies. Baud makes the metaphors of technology literal, depicting networks, machines, and data storage systems in action and decay. She emphasizes that what we perceive as abstraction is, in fact, a physical mechanism. We’ve grown used to thinking of technology as a tool, but Baud suggests it is no longer merely our creation – it is a set of interdependent entities, functioning within a network of relations. In a world of increasing economic and technological complexity, materiality escapes our perception. The language of magical metaphors used to describe technology masks its impact on our daily lives, relationships, and politics. What’s depicted is not a naive reversal of roles, but a recognition of the fact that the balance has been irreversibly disturbed. Our relationships with non-human objects requires the development of new default foundations, an awareness of our place within a network of factors, of how we influence and are influenced. To develop this awareness, we must abandon the weightless state offered by light, ephemeral solutions and experience the cold material reality.
Edna Baud is a visual and sound artist, a graduate of cultural studies at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. She is fascinated by the relations between people and machines, linguistics and the phenomenology of mystery. In her practice, she draws topographies of incredible allegories, creating semiotically dense and suggestive works. Her work has been presented in numerous exhibitions, including "We Want All Life" at the State Art Gallery in Sopot (2024), "Queer Strategies" at Wołyńska 9 in Poznań (2023), and "Arbeitsjournal" at the wanda gallery in Warsaw (2022). She lives and works in Gdańsk.
Accompanying events:
17.05.2025 (Sat) Night of Museums:
7:00 PM – artistic and curatorial tour with the participation of Edna Baud, Ida Dziublewska and Gabi Skrzypczak
approx. 8:30 PM – Deaf Tour: tour of the exhibition at the Foksal Gallery – led by Natalia Siuchta, duration approx. 30 minutes. The event will be held exclusively in Polish sign language PJM. No registration required.
Deaf Tour organized by the Independent Allied Collective. More information is available by joining the FB group Deaf Tour
28.06.2025 (Sat), 4:00 PM – artistic and curatorial tour with the participation of Edna Baud, Ida Dziublewska and Gabi Skrzypczak
English (UK) 
Polski