The context

The project provides a link between the city of Stavanger and the Polish immigrant population.

The patrons wish to commission a work of art that would integrate and involve Polish immigrant workers living in Norway by forming a group around a common project.

The commission

The artist created a work, entitled Polish Blue, echoing the blue of the fjords, designed specifically for the art center : the workers worked on two walls of the exhibition space, a surface delimited by the artist, which they covered with blue paint, then Janusz Stega superimposed prints of Polish motifs on it. Old furniture was installed near the work constituting a living room with the possibility for participants to occupy it and have their pictures taken. Through the artist's music, cuisine and performance, it is a part of Poland that has been found in Stavanger.

The artist travelled to Stavanger as part of a residency to meet the Polish community. Torunn Larsen, project manager of the Rogalandkunstsenter, allowed the artist to meet representatives of the Polish community : Polish workers, Ryszard Kalinowski, president of the Polish association in Stavanger ; Kasymierz Rochowicz, house painter ; Zygmunt Majcher, priest of the Catholic Church in Stavanger. First, the artist performed a performance with the group of Polish workers at the art center. Then, Ryszard Kalinowski of the Polish association, "referent person" of the workers' group, proposed to Janusz Stega to create a permanent commission work on a wall, for the Polish International House in Stavanger. Janusz Stega created the inaugurated work two days later. The project made it possible to establish a link between the two communities.

Janusz Stega

Born on 26 September in Krakow (Poland), Janusz Stega lives and works in Lille. Trained at the School of Fine Arts in Tourcoing, ERSEP, in 2003 he was awarded a residency at Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto (Japan). Janusz Stega draws part of his inspiration from the collective memory of a past marked by the technique of indoor mural painting in Poland. His appropriation of the roll refers to artists who, before him, have appropriated a specific means, a specific technique in order to explore all its artistic and theoretical facets. Working from engraved images taken from the heart of the city : sewer panels, etc., Janusz Stega questions contemporary painting, its object, its achievements, its context.