**Rescue Dummies,** 2021, exhibition at PinchukArtCentre for the Future Generation Art Prize

Navigating art from a post-pandemic perspective, keeping in mind the absence of the ability to view physical art, polish artist Agata Ingarden’s intricate sculptures provide a much needed breath of fresh air. With her work that can be described as a modernist extension of the surrealist movement, Ingarden creates large-scale sculptures utilising constructed and found objects to portray her own fictional narratives.

In her most recent exhibition ‘Rescue Dummies’, she creates the storyline for the Butterfly People, a group of characters present in a simulation named Dream House. These beings in their everyday existence attempt to break the limits and boundaries set for them whilst surveyed by Emotional Police. Ingarden’s work makes striking correaltions to the social climate we currently live within, and provides a revelation of sorts upon our existences ahead and potential political futures.

Where did the ideas for your recent exhibition, ‘Rescue Dummies’ arise? What message do you want to portray to your audiences here?

It started with a rescue dummy sinking in a swimming pool with a smile on its face. A shell filled with water being carried then let go by a swimmer. Somehow this scene felt very relatable at the moment to me. So I got one of these dummies and started opening up the layers of the shell, turning the inside out, like a box in a box in a box … – trying to expand and zoom in on these surfaces of in-betweenness. It all ended up being about an emotional dimension, the shared manifold of our experiences, intersubjectivity and empathy, our capacity to relate with other human beings.

What is the message behind the Butterfly People? Are they a narrative on today’s society and surveillance?

They are just my friends, and me - characters trying to find their way through the system they have been placed in. Maybe they are a narrative about growing together in a shared simulation – a game-like world – settled somewhere between elevators, and office buildings guts. Everyday they go to “work”, in different – but always the same – rooms. Whatever they do there, whether it be movements, dance, or even feelings, their efforts and experiences generate the energy that fuels the system they’re in. It’s a narrative on the world based on the idea of work, productivity, high performance and surveillance also, a world in which our emotional responses are being harvested as data and capitalised on.

I see for your exhibition you’ve collaborated with a few different creatives to execute your narrativedo you think collaboration is an important practice for creatives? It is something important to you?

I really enjoy collaborating. It's a creative dialog. Working on ‘Rescue Dummies’ and meeting a lot of people was the best challenging, exciting, most rewarding, and essential part of the project.

The idea of simulation and the metaverse that are popping up in media currently seem to infiltrate your work, how do you feel about the simulation theory and progressions behind made with VR and AI?

I think I grew up with the idea of reality being a simulation reading a lot of science fiction like Philip K Dick stories. What was interesting to me in these narratives is the way characters realise that something may be “off” with their reality. You see them questioning their surroundings, noticing that something is missing or not in its place. So all these contemporary concepts don’t really feel that new at the end it’s just the VR looks “more real” and the system finds a way to capitalise on it. I am interested in research about AI though, where is focuses on the functioning of our own brain, how we experience the world and emergence of self awareness.

**A Picnic at Sunset**, 2019, exhibition view **Future, Former, Fugitive**, at Palais de Tokyo, Paris

You seem to use a combination of found objects and created pieces in your installations, do you take inspiration from artists such as Duchamp and the narrative behind using found objects?

Duchamp’s idea about found objects was really based on the indifference he felt about them. For me objects bear meanings and feelings, whether they are industrially produced, made by hand, physical or abstract, etc. Objects are parts of reality, and I try to manipulate them taking in consideration the stories they carry.

If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why?

I would like to collaborate on a film. Maybe scenography, conception of the visual world for a film or theatre play or performance. I am inspired by universes of many artists but I don’t know if they would like to collaborate with me. I think a wish for collaboration comes from a mutual interest, a meeting, conversation. So I like collaborate with people around me that I meet.

What message do you wish to leave behind with your work?

I don’t think I’m trying to leave a specific message behind. I am just trying to understand the moment I am in now, trying to develop my language and ways of communicating the experiences and share it. A bit like when you try to tell someone your dream but it doesn’t make sense, and it takes time to translate what you experienced and what you actually tell or explain.

**Hothouse,** 2019, solo exhibition, Berthold Pott Gallery, Cologne, DE

What is next for you in terms of artistic endeavours? Do you have any projects in the works?

I am working on a multiple projects in continuation with Rescue Dummies. An interview based piece with performers; an artist book-script gathering research, and peripheral materials that came into making the project; other video installation works related with this experiment. It feels very much in progress still.