Mermaid
oryginal tittle: “Syrena”
(2022)
170 x 56 x 25 cm
Concrete
Photo: Andrew Skowron
This body is no longer alive. Wrapped in fabric, a sack, stripped of features, reduced to a form that is easy to hide, silence, neutralize. Only the feet remain visible—shaped like fins, a trace that this was no ordinary figure, but something more. A siren.
In cultures across the world, the siren is a hybrid being—a creature of the in-between. She joins human with fish, land with water, reason with instinct. A symbol of life in balance, but also a warning. Mythical sirens were beautiful and dangerous. Their song was alluring, but brought destruction. They taught humility in the face of natural forces that cannot be tamed.
Today, this siren no longer sings. She offers no warning. She lies dead. Her death is an image of what we are doing to nature—we suppress, deny, silence. It is the result of systematically destroying the planet, as if we’ve forgotten we are part of it. We are killing the myth that was meant to protect us.
This is not a romantic catastrophe—there is no grandeur here, no beautiful ruins. There is a sack. A dead body. And silence.
Karkoszka’s sculpture is an accusation—quiet, but final. It is not about one siren, but about something within us that died along with her: sensitivity, attentiveness, a connection to what is greater than ourselves.
SCULPTURE 
Have we done enough?
(2022)
Vistulan Boulevards, Warsaw 2022