The Midden of Time

‍Cezary Poniatowski (b. 1987)

Heist, 2025

extruded polysterene, metal vents

125 x 100 x 12 cm

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Middens are archeological sites characterised by the accumulation of debris, composed of deep, rich soil punctuated with the refuse of previous lives: artifacts, broken shells, bones, pottery shards, and botanical remains. These layered deposits are critical capsules for reconstructing human and ecological presence throughout time. To access the stratified information, archaeologists carefully excavate and contextualise the layers of matter; precisely reassembling and analysing the midden in a laboratory is an essential secondary process in which, fragment by fragment, the details of another era reveal themselves.

The group exhibition 'The Midden of Time' brings together five contemporary practices that explore what occurs through the sifting, digging, collecting, layering, and transforming of symbols, genres, and embodied experiences. Embracing rigorous material-focused processes, the exhibition is a site for witnessing the artistic, bodily, and historic fieldwork held in the presented works.’ Like the midden’s material properties, the practices each approach time as a layered, living thing, ruled by accretion and punctuated by memories and objects.

-Words by Michaela Yarmol-Matusiak

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