Unnatural Practice, the film created by Marcin Rusak Studio is a tale of becoming. A visual manifesto, reflecting upon the consumerism culture, exposing and embracing the process of decay, destruction, and renewal.
Decomposition forced into shape, flowers forever frozen in the black resin constitute life-like tissue of Marcin Rusak’s objects. The artist turns mass-produced into ephemeral and allows natural to merge with the artificial. Through his interventions, the decay becomes an ore and what is considered waste, becomes precious. The impermanent nature of the material becomes intertwined with the transience of memory.
Sunken in the darkness of Aga Beaupré’s image, Rusak’s work seems to inhabit interiors of the Świdno Palace. Old, declining building becomes an incubator. The objects constitute its micro climate, by imposing their own conditions – they require light or lack of one, they need cold in order to sustain their shape – or warmth to melt and transform. The artist is there to make sure their requirements are met.
The narration based on the story of the flower trade is juxtaposed with the dramatic soundscape which seems to give voice to thesilenced plants. Bred for years, for qualities different than their smell, shaped into subjectively pleasing form, flowers became ghosts of their previous selves. Forced into the symbolic shape, the plants are given second life as the ephemeral objects, but it is through the moving image that their story becomes vocalised. Their tale becomes a balancing act between the shape and scent, memory and ignorance, life and decay – image and sound
