Entrance to Przejście Garncarskie is located in ul. Piotra Skargi, between the building of High School No. 10 and the PZU building. The first audience, the city authorities: mayor Rafał Dutkiewicz and vice mayor Adam Grehl were absolutely delighted with it.
The ceramic mural is 18.2 metres long and 2.14 metres high, and covers a total area of 39 sqm. It consists of 362 tiles made by 262 artists from around the world. Prof. Katarzyna Koczyńska-Kielan and Prof. Joanna Teper with the Faculty of Glass and Ceramics of the Wrocław Academy of Fine Arts personally laid the tiles in the wall of the passage. Along with the tiles that make up the frame and caption, the mural consists of 570 ceramic pieces.
"Each tile is different, made in different technique, with different thickness. This is not the material, which a tile company can handle," emphasizes Prof. Piotr Kielan, rector of the Academy of Fine Arts. "The work on the mural took two years. This is one of our activities included in the ECC Wrocław 2016," he added. "The result is an attractive and original work, and I hope that it will survive intact for many years. It will inform visitors to Wrocław that we were the European Capital of Culture. This unprecedented realization hides incredible organizational and artistic effort," points out the rector.
"Wrocław is Poland's only city with a university faculty of glass and ceramics," explains prof. Katarzyna Koczyńska-Kielan. "There is also something called the Wrocław school of ceramics, so we wanted to create a work here, which reminds that the city cultivates glass and ceramic traditions.
The artists sent 600 invitations to ceramist artists from all over the world and to institutions cooperating with the Wrocław Academy of Fine Arts. They got a response from countries such as Brazil, Cuba, China, Korea, Japan, from both European countries and the Middle East. There were also artists from Wrocław and Lower Silesia, as well as students of art schools.
"A common theme in the mural was "Let's Meet", but we didn't want to impose anything on the artists," the professors point out. "We didn't want to limit their spontaneity and creative possibilities."
The leader professors received tiles decorated in the abstract, carved, made in the glazing painting technique (Turkey) or the celadon technology (China). "The mural is one big manual of the techniques of ceramic," laugh the artists. They had designed the frame, the skeleton of the mural. It consists of 208 tiles made by students and employees of the Academy. They are decorated with handmade lettering "Let's Meet" in 15 languages.
Prof. Katarzyna Koczyńska-Kielan and Prof. Joanna Teper arranged the tile composition all summer long. - Through trial and error, we matched each tile to create a coherent composition," they reveal. "It's probably the largest ceramic mural build in Poland since the 1980s," they point out.
By the mural a plaque will be inserted, which will include the names of all the authors of the mural and information on the project idea.
