Selected Projects
Riyadh Art – Tuwaiq Sculpture
Lead Curator of Tuwaiq Sculpture 2024 and 2023 as part of Riyadh Art – the first national public art initiative in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The aim of Riyadh Art is to place over 1,000 public artworks across the Saudi capital, transforming the city of Riyadh into a gallery without walls and a creative powerhouse for the digital age.
Tuwaiq Sculpture is a platform where local and international artists meet, collaborate, and create large-scale public artworks in a live setting. The open format of the symposium allows the public to observe the creative process, participate in interactive workshops, and discuss the history and future of public art, contributing to the enrichment of the cultural scene in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Subsequently, the artworks become a permanent feature of Riyadh’s urban fabric.
Augmented Body, Altered Mind
Augmented Body, Altered Mind is an interactive exhibition that visualises the way people think. The project uses a brain-computer interface to immerse visitors in an audiovisual environment that unfolds in real time. Developed by environmental artist AlanJames Burns and co-created by the public, this immersive artwork explores the intersections of the climate challenge, individual agency, and variations in the human brain and cognition. The project aims to engage and inspire diverse communities, exploring the extraordinary creative potential of human minds.
Tekton
Tekton – an audiovisual artwork for the media facade of Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul, Korea (September - October 2022).
Tekton explores the materiality and temporality of light in motion. The artwork is an ongoing collaboration between Mike Faulkner and Paul Mumford with incredible sound by Brun Swayzak, who have created a series of multi-layered light-emitting objects. Those devices are organised into kinetic structures that are governed by algorithmic systems. Inspired by the constructivist designs of Vladimir Tatlin and László Moholy-Nagy’s Light Space Modulator, Tekton presents imagined instruments that engineer different formations of kinetic light. While the mechanics of those devices are rendered invisible, traces of light emerge in front of viewers’ eyes. Dots, lines and curves overlap to explore fragile binaries of pattern and disorder, light and dark, harmony and disarray, human and machine. Those qualities are balanced as light structures are stabilised in motion, and phantasmal images appear in the air. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Tekton originates from an ever-evolving artwork by Mike Faulkner and Paul Mumford; it has been exhibited in a range of formats since 2012, including large-scale projections, kinetic light sculptures, and live audiovisual performances.
Respira-Trees
Respira-Trees is an environmental art intervention that uses bespoke portable sensors, micro-controllers, and advanced programming to process real-time data about invisible air pollution, making trees glow in different colours as air pollution levels change. Highlighting remarkable trees and distinct aspects of urban spaces, Respira-Trees opens conversations about the relationships between transport choices, air pollution, and health effects, encouraging greater eco-responsibility and promoting environmental improvements in local neighbourhoods and beyond.
Artists: Mike Faulkner and Kevin Walker.
Commissioned by the Mayor of London for the Liberty Festival and London Borough of Culture 2022. The project expanded into a series of Climate Storytelling Workshops organised in Vietnam in 2023.
Nine Earths
In 2021, Marek produced Nine Earths, the British Council's creative commissions for COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Nine Earths premiered at the British Film Institute in London and was later exhibited at COP26 in Glasgow and the Bandung Design Biennale in Indonesia. In 2022, Nine Earths was presented as an immersive architectural environment during G20 Cultural Diplomacy Program in Indonesia. Subsequently, it was also presented at Sónar Lisboa in Portugal and COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt and In Between Festival in Beirut, Lebanon, among others.
As Executive Producer at D-Fuse, a collective of audiovisual innovators founded by artist Mike Faulkner in the mid-1990s, Marek develops a portfolio of art forms that focuses on environmental storytelling and includes immersive installations, film, experimental documentary, audiovisual performances, and VR/XR.
Sculpture Network
With over a thousand members spread over forty countries, Sculpture Network is the largest international pan-European non-profit organisation for the support and promotion of three-dimensional art. Established in 2004, Sculpture Network has been connecting makers, critics, curators, sculpture parks, galleries, museums, and collectors of 3D art in Europe and beyond.
Marek serves as UK Lead of Sculpture Network, establishing collaborative partnerships with art institutions, organising curatorial tours and studio visits, and networking across the field of three-dimensional art.
Entirely hollow aside from the dark
In collaboration with visual and environmental artist AlanJames Burns and Creswell Crags Museum & Heritage Centre in East Midlands, Marek curated, produced, and daily managed the delivery of Entirely hollow aside from the dark, a series of immersive 32-channel psychoacoustic sound events, which took place inside caves boasting the UK’s only examples of Ice Age Rock Art created some 13,000 years ago.
In the darkness, visitors embarked on a visceral journey where a an audible inner dialogue echoing Mother Earth’s thoughts and regrets unfolded and a symphony of choreographed sounds shifted around the cave mirroring processes of the human mind. Entirely hollow aside from the dark, created by AlanJames Burns in collaboration with writer Sue Rainsford and sound editor Ian Dunph, simultaneously aimed to break down the stigma surrounding mental health and encourage environmental sustainability.
The project was supported by Arts Council England, Culture Ireland, First Art and the Creswell Crags Museum & Heritage Centre – managed and governed by the Creswell Heritage Trust.
Socially Engaged Publishing Projects
In 2020, Marek collaborated with Centrala Publishing on devising a long-term public engagement strategy for readers in the UK. The activities and projects included in the plan championed cultural and linguistic diversity of Europe. Centred around the themes of sense of belonging, European history, identity, and social cohesion, critically acclaimed graphic novels conveyed the core of European heart through a refreshing and highly engaging medium. Through a range of innovative approaches and tools, including Virtual Book Club, the projects addressed the accelerating digital transformation and achieved another strategic goal: contributing to a greater awareness of European solidarity and connectedness.
The projects received funding from the EU – Creative Europe as well as the European Cultural Foundation – Culture of Solidarity.
Bewogen Beweging: Strandbeest
Marek co-curated the world’s largest exhibition of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests kinetic sculptures. Centred around long-term environmental sustainability, the show brought together over a dozen of Theo Jansen’s dream machines that walk on the wind and as new forms of life become more and more resistant to changeable weather conditions. Visitors were encouraged not only to see the beasts, but also to move them by hand and follow the evolution of the Strandbeests through their skeletons, photos, artist’s sketches, and design drawings dating back to 1989.
The exhibition included over 500 live presentations of kinetic sculptures ‘coming back to life’ in a carefully designed beach-like environment inside vast glasshouses, attracting over 50,000 visitors.
Talk Programme at Offprint London
Offprint is an itinerant project supporting independent and experimental publishers working in the fields of contemporary art, photography, graphic design, architecture, humanities and visual culture. Offprint organises Offprint Paris and Offprint London, offering an exceptional selection of 200 avant-garde international publishers, gathering over 25,000 visitors each year.
Marek programmed and daily managed the delivery of Offprint London 2019 Talk Programme at Tate Modern, which included author meetings and presentations of book releases by some of the most esteemed international publishers, including MACK, GOST Books, STANLEY/BARKER, and The MIT Press.
Alan Sonfist: Time Capsule of Ancient Forest
Alan Sonfist’s art can be interpreted as a kind of ‘ecological archaeology’. In his works, the artist deals with the history of a given place, the question of the memory preserved in it, and the dialogue between the present and the past. Marek closely collaborated with Alan Sonfist on the production of a 20-metre long time capsule specifically created for continental Europe.
A gigantic disused factory chimney—a relic of the industrial age—protects a forest growing inside. As the climate change intensifies, the encapsulated forest gradaully develops and may eventually survive the upcoming climate catastrophe.
Zoro Feigl: The mechanics
Zoro Feigl poses questions about our attitudes towards technological advancements, industrialisation, and mechanical devices. The artist systematically explores physical properties of industrial materials such as plastic sheets, cords, ropes, etc. The tension achieved through the use of heavy components set in motion by engines and motors goes beyond rigid forms of mechanics, often resulting in poetic, dance-like qualities.
Marek curated Zoro Feigl’s major exhibition in 2016. The exhibition brought together a dozen of big-scale kinetic sculptures, including artworks specifically commissioned for the exhibition. Endless experiments led the artist to explore dynamics of movement, discover its rare qualities, and create balance between organic and mechanical properties. The mechanics, a monograph about Zoro Feigl’s work, was co-edited by Marek and was published on the occasion of the show.
Archieflab
In 2015, Marek redesigned the presentation of Archieflab—Martin uit den Bogaard’s solo exhibition of the enormous body of work that the artist had created over 30 years. Using animal carcasses and other natural objects, the artist took a closer look at many biological reactions and processes. He slowed the decay process down by encasing dead birds, mammals, reptiles, food, bones as well as blood samples in airtight glass cubes.
The alternating current remaining in the carcasses is measured by voltmeters connected to computers. Specially designed programme registers and transposes the voltage alternations into visible and audible representations. Therefore, every time the voltmeter measures a different voltage the computer generates new graphs and sounds of various frequencies. Even though the carcasses produce low levels of energy, it is still a powerful symbol suggesting the idea that life and death are not opposite states, but actually interact in a very complex way. This monumental work is now on permanent display at the Verbeke Foundation in Belgium.
The White House
With social justice at the heart of the creative process, Ryan Mendoza’s project encompassed long-term community engagement and cross-Atlantic connectedness that eventually led to disassembling an abandoned house in Detroit and shipping it to Europe. In partnership with the Verbeke Foundation, the artist first exhibited The White House at Art Rotterdam 2016, where it sparked a heated debate. The work was later disassembled yet again and transported across the border to find its permanently spot in the foundation’s sculpture park.
The White House shed light on both the hopes and frustrations of contemporary America and affected communities. Fabia Mendoza’s documentary about the project won awards at the 18th Beverly Hills Film festival and the Free Press film festivals.
Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest Cladogram
In close collaboration with Theo Jansen, Marek designed and produced a 40-metre long cladogram of Strandbeest showcasing the kinetic sculptures’ evolution since 1990 to the present day. The work contained nearly 200 photographs and drawings, over a dozen of text panels and descriptions, hundreds of parts of historic Strandbeest as well as an hour of archival footage that Marek edited into five chronological sequences. For the artist’s major retrospective, Marek also oversaw the installation of the cladogram on the gigantic wall at the Verbeke Foundation in Belgium.
Daniel Spoerri: Objet Oblige
In 2015, Marek was the guest curator of Daniel Spoerri’s exhibition in Belgium. The retrospective of the co-creator of new realism and one of main art figures linked to Fluxus, presented 26 large bronze sculpture, 18 assemblages, and a series of collages.
Daniel Spoerri is best known for his ‘snare-pictures,’ a type of assemblage, in which he captures a group of objects, such as the remains of meals eaten by individuals, including the plates, silverware and glasses, all of which are fixed to the table or board, which is then displayed on a wall. The artist’s ear for meaning, together with the philosophical sense of humour—characteristic of Fluxus artists—and the gift of beautiful excess, a trait of true gourmands, all combine into his artistic flair.
Propaganda
In 2015, Marek curated Propaganda, Wiktor Dyndo’s solo show in London. The exhibition featured artist’s Internet Lies and Flags series, which explore political, social, and cultural issues.
Internet Lies referred to the circulation of images depicting recent events and global issues. In The Information Bomb, Paul Virilio paraphrases Francis Fukuyama’s well-known statement about the end of history and presents a thesis about the end of geography. Dyndo’s works formed an interpretive challenge relating to the state of current consciousness dominated by a row of political, ethnical and social anxieties. Flags, in turn, explored historic and cultural usage of symbols, colours, and shapes commonly used as tools of political and social identification. The exhibition investigated issues relating to media manipulation, aesthetics of power, and political division of the globalised world.
Focal Point
This group show curated by Marek investigated how communication might look like beyond rigid and limiting rules of linguistics. The exhibition applied the concept of focal point, a notion from the game theory introduced by the Nobel Prize winner scientist Thomas Schelling, to an art situation. Centred around possible solutions that people tend to use in the absence of direct communication, Focal Point explored the gap between—and improbable proximity of—the world of images that is subjective to each viewer and the expectations from audience members to perceive particular objects objectively.
Focal Point presented documentary-styled photographs taken with a thermographic camera by Kenji Hirasawa, intricate collages of Christopher Oliver, large-scale meditative photographs of Darek Fortas, and Joanna Sperryn-Jones’ interactive and ephemeral installation.
A Shapeshifting World
Marek curated Takayuki Hara’s exhibitions in London (2013) and Brussels (2014), which presented artist’s thought-provoking body of work created since 2009. Initially inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Hara worked on a series of charcoal drawings and mixed-media sculptures based on the idea of our ever-changing and fluid identity. Over the years, the scope of the artist’s projects expanded as Hara drew inspiration from the writings of Japanese philosopher Yutaka Haniwa, Dostoevsky, Freud, as well as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s approaches to identity. The artist focused on the idea of bodies being the borderline of our society and Animal-Human relationships. In his work, Hara traveled through macro and micro world of nature, embracing references to the process of globalisation as well as myths and fairy tales present in both European and Asian cultural traditions.
The exhibition at Unit24 Gallery in London was accompanied by an artist talk with Professor Timon Screech from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. The exhibition in Belgium was organised at the European Parliament in Brussels. Marek also edited Takayuki Hara’s monograph published in 2014.
A Shapeshifting World was part of J400 – an international celebration of the 400th anniversary of Japan-UK relations.
Signum Foundation: Documentary
In 2012, Marek produced of a documentary about the Signum Foundation that was later screened at Art Basel 2012. He researched the foundation's collection and archive (exhibitions in Poland and in Venice, Italy), conducted interviews with the foundation board; oversaw the editing and post production processes; and delivering the final product.
Image: Blue Red Green by Carlos Cruz-Diez, installation view at ‘Light and Movement’ exhibition curated by Grzegorz Musial and held at the Signum Foundation Palazzo Donà, Venice, Italy in 2010.
Workshops, Lectures & Talks
Over the years, Marek has delivered workshops, lectures, and talks on exhibition design, visitor experience, and effective ways of promoting public engagement.
Marek has given guest lectures at the Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London; Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia; Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland; Labyrinth Gallery in Lublin, Poland; Verbeke Foundation in Belgium; and Fire Station Artists’ Studios in Dublin, Ireland, among others.
Contemporary Lynx Magazine
Since 2015, Marek has been an editor of Contemporary Lynx, an international magazine centred around contemporary art and design. Contemporary Lynx, published online and in print, is a press partner of major art institutions and events. The print issues are distributed globally and are available at Tate Modern bookstores, among other places.
Marek has extensively covered contemporary art and design, including interviews with artists, collectors and creative practitioners, such as new media artist Refik Anadol, Italian mega-collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Belgian collector and museum director Geert Verbeke, founder and longtime director of LISTE art fair Peter Bläuer, California-based contemporary artist Shana Moulton, environmental artist and vegan designer Erez Nevi Pana, as well as Antoine de Galbert, the French collector and longtime director of La Maison Rouge in Paris.
In collaboration with Bompas & Parr, globally recognised experts in multi-sensory experience design, Marek also art directed the lenticular wobbling jelly magazine cover for the Contemporary Lynx summer 2019 issue.