in former Ballestreme Palace in Wrocław
in the frames of WRO 15th Media Art Biennale exhibition Rings of Saturn
2013
The Ballestrem Palace designed by Albert Grau was commisioned by Franz Xaver von Ballestrem, member of the Catholic party and the President of the Reichstag, on a plot in the Jewish Quarter at Wallstrase 4 in Breslau (actually ul. Włodkowica 4 in Wrocław).
the framed 32" TV with projection and a still from the video
technical support: Ania Ejsmont
The Mirage
3 mirrors, 2 photographies / inkjet prints, TV with day-long video,
5 eclectic frames and 2 rooms; 2013
The parts of installation hang in such order that not every “mirror” reflects the viewer.
the eclectic frames contain:
1, 4 & 6 – mirrors
2 & 5 – photographies / inkjet prints
3 – video projection
A mirage, a Fata Morgana, is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. In Poland mirages occur in the Błędów Desert and the Silesian Highland, where the story of Ballestrem family began by a kind of marriage: Giovanni Angelo Conte von Ballestrieri di Castellengo (a mercenary in the Prussian emperor’s army) marrying into the family of Baron von Strechov (by marrying his daughter Mary Elisabeth) in the 18th century. Baron Franz Wolfgang von Strechov was the founder of a majorat covering Ruda Śląska, Biskupice-Zabrze, and Pławniowice, whose estates had been inherited by the Ballestrems in 1798 and have stayed in their possession until 1945. After the IIWW the palace had hosted the Office of Public Security of Polish communist government – paradox of the powerful dignitary from the Polish United Workers' Party lays in anti-egalitarian inclinations. Later, the municipal dividing of the palace to a lot of small social housing for poor, ordinary people resettled from the eastern borders, has the tragi-comic results as a mirage of living in a palace.