Krak’s Dream Project – fortress 33 / project

Krak’s Dream Project – fortress 33

Krak’s Dream Project – fortress 33 by Ba-Bi tandem (Ilona Barszcz and Maria Bitka) is a proposal of transformation of the Krakus Mound into a monumental breast during the Festival Art Boom. The concept foresaw the use of a agrotextile dyed with biodegradable paint to cover the mound. The culmination of the project was to include a performance, featuring a procession to the top of the installation and the joint construction of the nipple out of edible materials.

The origins of the Mound are not fully known, and are a subject of many legends, customs and history (including the “Rękawka” feast). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Mound also served as the vantage point of the fortress.

In its current form, the Mound resembles a woman’s breast, which has undoubtedly been used by the authors of the project. They made its look quite unequivocal. First, they dyed the white fabric pink – the color of the body; then, they applied it personally on the entire surface of the Mound, turning this action into a combination of dressing and undressing all at once. The culmination of the „dressing” of the Mound was to be the procession, carrying to the top the edible components of the breast: pink wafers, jellies and warm ice cream.

The breast is a simple but very powerful symbol of almost unlimited possible paths of interpretation, which the authors were consciously referring to. The breast is at the same time a reference to sexuality and motherhood, the physicality and feeding, to pleasure and ecstasy but also to suffering (eg. Mastectomy – the project features only one breast). The breast may also be associated to something safe – being back to the mother’s breast; but can also be a part of war symbolism, as the mound is a symbol of a fortress. The giant tit at Podgórze could also be seen as form of kitsch or fascination with size …

The project by Bi-Ba Tandem met with numerous protests, with a particularly large role played by the media. The project could not be implemented as originally planned. Finally Krak’s Dream – Fortress 33 came into existence only in the realm of the Internet; and, the media, which brought about the suspension of the project, found themselves tricked by Ilona Barszcz and Maria Bitka – they believed that the hoax was reality.

Krak’s Dream – Fortress 33 became the trigger for the discussion about what the artist can and cannot do and to what an extent the world is shaped by the media.