We confront the problem of representation every minute of every day. What constitutes a useful map? What kind of a map do we have inside our heads to help us navigate the world? Do we navigate with an "objective" birds-eye non-perspective view inside our heads? Or do we navigate by landmarks and signs? To what extent do we use the world itself as a map of itself? To what extent do we construct our own version of the world?... How do we, as humans, represent the world inside our heads? How smart and rational are we really? How much of our insight bubbles up from beneath our intellect or from outside? Does our conscious mind take credit for unconscious processes? Is consciousness an epiphenomenon, something that says, "I knew that" when in fact it didn't?
—Lewis Carroll
Jarke J. van Wijk. Unfolding the Earth: Myriahedral Projections. The Cartographic Journal, Vol. 45, No. 1, pp.32-42, February 2008.
Why Ziemniaki i? Because these sadly austere times demand more levity. The absurd nature of holding a potato at the crux of critical thinking is one of the main driving forces behind the name Ziemniaki i (Potatoes and..). For the graphic identity we wanted to approach the potato from a non-food related angle, so how could we separate it from its assumptions of use? It wouldn’t be far fetched at all to find a chip shop somewhere in Poland called Ziemniaki i, with a punnet of fries for its logo and a long list of vegan sauces chalked onto a pastel blue or pink billboard.
Paper Potato Sacks, 25kg
So how can we take aspects of the potato, their shadows maybe, and use them to create a binding identity for a cultural organisation? How can our playful, totemic and transgressive tubers become open and intermediate forms whose boundaries remain porous?
Scan of potato peel
Well, because potatoes are mystifying things. They form the everyday fabric of billions of lives, knitting them together through shared experience. We can recall their taste, texture and smell at any given moment. They are everything and nothing. They reach both into our deep past and thinly stretched futures. And most importantly, everyone has a potato story.
Homemade potato hair mask contains vitamin A, B and C, which cleanse the scalp of oil build-up, remove flaky dandruff, unclog pores and promote regeneration of new hair follicles. Source
The potato, in this weird story of ours, ends up symbolising our world and all it contains as it embraces a multiple of people, cultures and environments. It has travelled to every corner of our planet and is as diverse in character as humanity is, with 2500 different varieties in Peru alone. The topography of the potato, once peeled, reveal to us unfolding futures of patterns and associations. This hobo’s map of the planet, cut free from its form, can direct us in any way we choose. We can all do it. Peel a potato with intention and see where it takes you.
Ziemniaki i is not only an hosting space for ideas but has the objective of acting as a publishing house too. This is also represented in the identity developed by Krzysztof Pyda who has reflected the malleable matter of the potato. It can be fried, baked, mashed, peeled, roasted, boiled, distilled, put into a canon and shot into the sky. It can be cut, scanned, photographed, printed and used to replicate those aforementioned patterns and associations. The potato contains a multitude of functions other than simply feeding us. They can communicate. They help us communicate. And they can tell us comforting stories at night, while the whispers outside grow louder and louder.
1960s Vintage Ad For Frito Lay Lays Potato Chips
We tell these stories every time we mould, carve, emboss and stamp with them. As potato touches paper, the muscles, bones and tendons in our hands work in unison with the tuber. Transferring meaning as soon as the ink begins to dry. I Cut, Potato Prints, We Co-create.
Roses in the salad, book by Bruno Munari. Published by CORRAINI EDIZIONI
We are stores of energy and histories. We are cheap and tasty. We grow towards the light and are capable of producing bouts of electric current: shocking when we need to. The Polish divide the world into people who eat potatoes and people who eat tomatoes. The Dutch are potato eaters. In Brazil there is the Batata Inglesa. Its meaning shifts yet its form is instantly recognisable. In Poland they even have three different words for it, highlighting their occupied past: Pyra, Kartofel, Ziemniak. And they have even been described as being the equal of iron in their ‘historically revolutionary role’.
Soldier peeling potatoes. (Photo by John Phillips/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)
A relationship is developed since the reliance between the ziemniak and us becomes mutual; as it’s estimated that by 2050 25% of all potato species will be extinct due to climate change. So the bond becomes one of trust. They now have to trust us as much as we have trusted them. They are mercurial sod covered signals, blinking from the mud.
We can communicate with and through them. Let’s use them to express ourselves while also letting them influence us: making us laugh, reminding us of a loved one, reconnecting us with the dirt.
We confront the problem of representation every minute of every day. What constitutes a useful map? What kind of a map do we have inside our heads to help us navigate the world? Do we navigate with an "objective" birds-eye non-perspective view inside our heads? Or do we navigate by landmarks and signs? To what extent do we use the world itself as a map of itself? To what extent do we construct our own version of the world?... How do we, as humans, represent the world inside our heads? How smart and rational are we really? How much of our insight bubbles up from beneath our intellect or from outside? Does our conscious mind take credit for unconscious processes? Is consciousness an epiphenomenon, something that says, "I knew that" when in fact it didn't?
—Lewis Carroll
Jarke J. van Wijk. Unfolding the Earth: Myriahedral Projections. The Cartographic Journal, Vol. 45, No. 1, pp.32-42, February 2008.
Why Ziemniaki i? Because these sadly austere times demand more levity. The absurd nature of holding a potato at the crux of critical thinking is one of the main driving forces behind the name Ziemniaki i (Potatoes and..). For the graphic identity we wanted to approach the potato from a non-food related angle, so how could we separate it from its assumptions of use? It wouldn’t be far fetched at all to find a chip shop somewhere in Poland called Ziemniaki i, with a punnet of fries for its logo and a long list of vegan sauces chalked onto a pastel blue or pink billboard.
Paper Potato Sacks, 25kg
So how can we take aspects of the potato, their shadows maybe, and use them to create a binding identity for a cultural organisation? How can our playful, totemic and transgressive tubers become open and intermediate forms whose boundaries remain porous?
Scan of potato peel
Well, because potatoes are mystifying things. They form the everyday fabric of billions of lives, knitting them together through shared experience. We can recall their taste, texture and smell at any given moment. They are everything and nothing. They reach both into our deep past and thinly stretched futures. And most importantly, everyone has a potato story.
Homemade potato hair mask contains vitamin A, B and C, which cleanse the scalp of oil build-up, remove flaky dandruff, unclog pores and promote regeneration of new hair follicles. Source
The potato, in this weird story of ours, ends up symbolising our world and all it contains as it embraces a multiple of people, cultures and environments. It has travelled to every corner of our planet and is as diverse in character as humanity is, with 2500 different varieties in Peru alone. The topography of the potato, once peeled, reveal to us unfolding futures of patterns and associations. This hobo’s map of the planet, cut free from its form, can direct us in any way we choose. We can all do it. Peel a potato with intention and see where it takes you.
Ziemniaki i is not only an hosting space for ideas but has the objective of acting as a publishing house too. This is also represented in the identity developed by Krzysztof Pyda who has reflected the malleable matter of the potato. It can be fried, baked, mashed, peeled, roasted, boiled, distilled, put into a canon and shot into the sky. It can be cut, scanned, photographed, printed and used to replicate those aforementioned patterns and associations. The potato contains a multitude of functions other than simply feeding us. They can communicate. They help us communicate. And they can tell us comforting stories at night, while the whispers outside grow louder and louder.
1960s Vintage Ad For Frito Lay Lays Potato Chips
We tell these stories every time we mould, carve, emboss and stamp with them. As potato touches paper, the muscles, bones and tendons in our hands work in unison with the tuber. Transferring meaning as soon as the ink begins to dry. I Cut, Potato Prints, We Co-create.
Roses in the salad, book by Bruno Munari. Published by CORRAINI EDIZIONI
We are stores of energy and histories. We are cheap and tasty. We grow towards the light and are capable of producing bouts of electric current: shocking when we need to. The Polish divide the world into people who eat potatoes and people who eat tomatoes. The Dutch are potato eaters. In Brazil there is the Batata Inglesa. Its meaning shifts yet its form is instantly recognisable. In Poland they even have three different words for it, highlighting their occupied past: Pyra, Kartofel, Ziemniak. And they have even been described as being the equal of iron in their ‘historically revolutionary role’.
Soldier peeling potatoes. (Photo by John Phillips/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)
A relationship is developed since the reliance between the ziemniak and us becomes mutual; as it’s estimated that by 2050 25% of all potato species will be extinct due to climate change. So the bond becomes one of trust. They now have to trust us as much as we have trusted them. They are mercurial sod covered signals, blinking from the mud.
We can communicate with and through them. Let’s use them to express ourselves while also letting them influence us: making us laugh, reminding us of a loved one, reconnecting us with the dirt.