Asia Sztencel

Every day from Monday to Friday, for two hours I connect with kids and adults via Zoom and invite them to join me in my art making.

I started this project in the mid March 2020 to connect people through art. <3<3<3 To give myself and my community a schedule and productive art time.

Teens & Adults 3pm EST

Kids Zoom meeting 4pm EST

McGolrick Park, Brooklyn, NY

The Greenpoint public park was transformed into artist plein air studio.

As she painted from personal memories of travel in Poland and California, park visitors were invited to join in and paint , talk, learn or just watch her art process

PROJECT HOURS:

August 15th - October 15th, 2019

Tuesday through Saturday 9 AM - 12 Noon

Generous Support for this project was provided by:

Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union

Local Staples Store.

Refugee Center, Grotniki, Poland

The sister project to the 2017 Greenpoint one on Polish immigrants in the U.S. In Grotniki the artist produces portraits of refugees living in Poland while having a conversation about the memory of their landscape back from home.

Film and photography documentation by Polish filmmaker Aleksander Krzystyniak.

Refugee Center, Grotniki, Poland

In collaboration with artist and educator Honorata Robak.

Concept was to create a template project, to urge the social aspect of refugees through among the community of artists in Poland.

In collaboration with a Polish artist and an educator Honorata Robak, a series of artmaking workshops for children of refugees was presented onsite at the Polish Refugees Center.

A student of Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, Paulina Grzeliska who connect with this concept, and at first was assisting during the workshops, eventually created her own art workshops adopting our template to her art concept strongly connected to her painting practise. Project was promoted on social media. At the Fall 2020 project is invited to the City Gallery in Lodz.

Film documentation by Polish filmmaker Aleksander Krzystyniak.

Burton Chace Park, Marina del Rey, CA

The project was a well received intervention of public space in which a SoCal public park was transformed into a plein air studio. The outdoor pop-up studio was open to the public, where the artist produced landscapes onsite with screenshots from Polish soap operas as her primary source. This project featured a lively interactive aspect. An authentic dialog with this community was created by inviting interested people to join the artist and participate in art making.

18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA

Produced collaboration with 18th Street Arts Center using their mapping project.

A sister project was created for the gentrifying neighborhood of Pico, in Santa Monica. The artist invited six iconic businesses from the neighborhood, drew the facades and added them to the map drawing on the tote bags. The bags were colorfully painted by participants at the event and used as a map in the scavenger hunt - a playful way to visit and conect with the Pico businesses via art. The artist also prepeared a detail map for visitors so they could add their favorite places in Pico on it.

"Asia Sztencel has been pursuing artistic research that is engaged with the experience of immigrants, primarily focusing on the Polish landscape in the imagination and reminiscences of Polish immigrants living in NYC. In this latest work, Sztencel creates two paintings of typical sweets as a metaphor of Polish and American identities in the eyes of the immigrants, offering the concept of national identity in a candy wrapper. The research process continues throughout the exhibition period in the form of meetings with voluntary audience members. The subsequent conversations which transpire and additional paintings of candies produced are related to identity politics and representation. The basic form in which the artist chooses to work generates further dialogues and critical approaches towards the prevailing perspectives of national identity. The formal and conceptual analysis of these simple objects allows the artist to create platforms for further discussions about the notion of identity and its perception."

Curator: Isin Onol

Generous Support for this project was provided by:

Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union

The Kosciuszko Foundation

Polish & Slavic Center

The Hollows Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Curator: Piril Gündüz

Interactive exhibition raising the subject of gentrification, included a self-designed tote bags, a video mural, installations in nearby businesses of Sztencel’s art objects, and events programming. “Welcome to My Greenpoint” was an experiment in public engagement in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. A unique scavenger art hunt was playfully offered to connect viewers of the exhibition in Williamsburg with the Greenpoint community. Collaborative relationships between local businesses and the artist was a focus. Sztencel curated a self-guided tour of local hidden treasures for visitors to revel in as they were inspired to support this vibrant Polish community.

Generous Support for this project was provided by:

Polish Cultural Institute, New York

Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union.

Installation at Java Open Studio, Brooklyn, NY

Introduction to the Greenpoint community included a survey with six questions designed to inspire curiosity about Polish culture and products among outsiders and newcomers to Greenpoint.

Painting Project, Brooklyn, NY

Inspired by Renaissance Florentine paintings where landscapes were added to backgrounds behind portraits. During the art residency at the Polish cultural promoter Kurier Plus in Greenpoint, Sztencel invited Polish emigrants to sit for their portrait. Artist invited the model to share their memory of landscape from Poland. The conscious choice of the painting technique sessions helped her connect with the subject in conversations with the models.

With a grant from the Polish Cultural Institute in NYC, the artist went to Poland, to visit places specific to each model, audio recorded during the session. On the side she was meditating and painting the landscape with the intention to enter the memory of the palace in herself.

She added landscape details to the background of the portraits at her Brooklyn studio.

Film and photography documentation by Polish filmmaker Aleksander Krzystyniak.

Generous Support for this project was provided by:

Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union

Polish Cultural Institute

Kurier Plus

In collaboration with photographer Maria Boyadjieva.

A series of free outdoor workshops for school-age children of Polish immigrants in McGolrick Park, Greenpoint, Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Public Library. .

Participants received paint, brushes, and new, gessoed shipping boxes on which to paint their original interpretations of iconic NYC scenes. Painted parcels were later sent to the parent’s home country.

Generous Support for this project was provided by:

Greenpoint-Transitions Foundation

Good Fortune, an art project for everyone.

A Collaboration with artist Hurami Ori.

This project is inspired by Sztencel’s trip to Japan in 2013 and the experience of a Japanese tradition Omikuji.

OMIKUJI are ‘chance’ fortunes written on strips of paper at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in Japan. People randomly choosing them from the fortune box, hoping their fortune to be good BUT when the prediction is bad, it is a custom to fold up the strip of paper and attach it to a pine tree or a wall of metal wires alongside other bad fortunes in the temple or on shrine grounds.

A reason for this custom is a pun on the word for pine tree (松 matsu) and the verb ‘to wait’ (待つ matsu), the idea being that the bad luck will wait by the tree rather than attach itself to the bearer.

By respectfully modifying this Japanese tradition custom artist hoped to offer an enjoyable experience to her own community.

She invited, with a Japanese artist Harumi Ori, participants to tell her their worries. Ori wrote it down in beautiful Japanese calligraphy, Sztencel assisted with translating from Polish to English when it was required.

In the GOOD FORTUNE project, in the Japanese tradition,  participants had a chance to pause and contemplate, and be symbolically released from their worries.

The work installation is presented in public places to make it easily accessible to viewers who might not otherwise be in the habit of visiting art galleries and museums. To bring the art experience in everyday life context.

EVERYDAY DRAWING SERIES

In 2013 the artist moved to Greenpoint and was going through the process of getting to know her new Polish community. One day Sztencel noticed that most of her Polish neighbors are using a “Ludwig” dish soap, very popular back in the 80’s in Poland. A retro icon back from the time of the Soviet Occupation period, not that popular in Poland anymore.

Reflecting on this founding this evening she looked carefully around her own household and realized that she, herself is also surrounded by Polish products. Muszynianka; her favorite spring water, Krówki; favorite Polish candies or Pharmaceris; favorite Polish face cream, just to name a few.

She realized how immigrants surround themselves with familiar products from their countries of origin to create a unique Domestic Landscape.

Starting from the next day, everyday she was going to a near by Bodegas and mom-and-pops, looking for a Polish products. Drawing them, and posting on the social media.

GIVE THE INFORMATION TO THE PEOPLE

In early 2015 I started a new project for a non-for-profit NYC-based organization, POMOC.

The mission of POMOC is to improve the quality of life for those in need, particularly immigrant families and seniors, by providing services that encourage and enable them to achieve maximum self-sufficiency and independence.

My project goal was to make the information easily accessible to the people it was intended for, and to involve the newest generation of young Graphic Designers from NYC in a socially conscious design process.

Together with a group of the students, we developed and produced branding design for this community organization started by Polish refugees in 1980. The contemporary design we created, supported a professional, functional capability necessary to exist in the 21st Century.

This included upgrading their outreach to include social media and creating a user friendly, informative brochures, business cards and letterhead, to connect them with clients and potential sponsors. The high quality materials we produced, have helped them attract the positive attention they deserve after more than 35 years serving a large, diverse community in the US. The participating design students gained valuable professional experience as they earned hands-on credit, working to support their community as designers and socially conscious problem solvers.