Patrycja Orzechowska

Black Gold: When Attitude Becomes Form reaches back to the history of the city’s founding, recalling that the port of Gdynia—where everything began—arose out of marshland: unstable ground wrested away from nature. A second point of reference is the collision between two orders of the city: the white modernist architecture and the black provisional architecture of survival. It was on ground reclaimed from marshes that the idea of a modern city began to crystallise—yet it was unstable ground, physically and socially, requiring constant maintenance, draining, and the suppression of whatever did not fit the official narrative.

This work deconstructs the myth of the city of modernity and success, recalling the invisible inhabitants of the poverty districts that formed on its outskirts. It consists of nearly 1,000 modules made of peat—a material that binds together the histories of labour, poverty, and environmental exploitation. Drawing on the figure of “black gold,” the project exposes tensions between wealth and exclusion, and draws attention to the significance of threatened peatlands as critical carbon stores. Through the conscious and ethical use of this material, I direct attention to the degradation of peatlands and its profound impact on climate change and ecosystem function.

The installation takes the form of an anti-monument dedicated to the city’s anonymous builders. Its form will change over the course of the exhibition: initially growing, until it is finally dismantled by the public. Funds raised through the sale of contribution bricks at three denominations—20, 50, and 100 PLN—will be donated to two organisations, one social and one ecological.