The animals look statuesque, but Ida sculpted them from lightweight acrylic resin so that they could be placed on the roofs of buildings, waste heaps or in the bed of a dried-up river. The animal sculptures were part of a year-long project at the crossroads of social campaigning and visual arts. Together with a group of photographers, Ida wandered through places marked by destructive human activity and counted down time, suggesting that there is not much time to waste. The photographs used the interchangeable languages of documentation, reportage, intervention and impression. Their common denominator was human degeneration, which the animals watched in silence, apocalyptic degradation, irresponsible abuse of the achievements of civilisation and mindless destruction of the planet, which may eventually lead to the collective suicide of the species called rational man. In galleries, museums and art exhibitions we watch and comment, but this time it is the sculptures that observe and judge. Once again, Ida reverses roles, one of her means used to revive feeling and thinking in a world suffering from a crisis of empathy and imagination.

Paweł Brylski