artists: Adrianna Jarzębowska, Justyna Jaworska, Marcelina Krzemińska, Liliana Piskorska, Joanna Sitka, Milena Sudomir-Gordon, Agnieszka Szatkowska

Collaboration: Marta Kołacz, Piotr Lisowski

Body-related perception of reality remains the basic element of cognitive processes. Reactions of the body tend to depend on its surroundings, environment, cultural habits and fear. Sudden disturbance of perception and deformation of impression trigger stimuli transformed by daily senses into agitation, breaking the bodily routine. The body finds itself forced to develop synaesthetic responses, to regroup the senses and to react intuitively. To grasp this moment seems to be an important step towards cognition – self-cognition rather than the cognition of reality.

The Please Touch exhibition seeks to draw attention to those human cognitive abilities which are usually ignored or scorned. We are going to test the potential of reception: taking in reality with our senses, which not always serve their original purpose. It is commonly believed that we visit an art gallery to view an exhibition. Surrounded by signs telling us not to touch anything, accustomed to see works of art protected by tape or glass, we do not have the opportunity to come into direct contact with artworks, we are only allowed to admire them from a distance. Haptic art appears a specific and prohibited sort of pleasure.

This exhibition has been designed to be explored with all of our senses. This time, however, sight slips into the background. In the process of creation we have aimed to find answers to the following questions: what tools do artists have at their disposal? What is the limit to their creation? Is the greatest impact to be achieved by sight? Deformation and disturbance of perception becomes the key to facilitating direct contact with a work of art, prohibited so far.