“Laboratory of Contemporary Archaeology”
Exhibition at the Dialogue Centre “Przełomy” in Szczecin, 2026
The exhibition features over 60 spatial objects, all hand-sculpted from black ceramic clay.
Media archaeology as practiced by Szpener is part of a broader phenomenon of memory archaeology and refers to a nostalgia for a time when capitalism promised progress, and its associated risks were not yet clearly perceived. This nostalgia is evident, among other things, in the success of the series Stranger Things, and in new media art — in a fascination with low-tech technologies. The artist’s post-apocalyptic, archaeological perspective once again focuses on objects of popular culture — both problematizing them and rendering them tangible and preserved. Szpener presents a vision of objects from the past, retained in the form of archaeological finds.
The exhibition by Monika Szpener forms part of a broader museum narrative. The storyline at the National Museum in Szczecin – Dialogue Centre “Przełomy” begins after World War II and concludes with the political transformation of 1989. The artist continues this timeline in the subsequent gallery space, making visible objects that testify to the “breath of the West” and the arrival of consumer capitalism in Poland — objects that, as symbols of modernity, quickly became part of the past and are now being rediscovered through archaeology.
Text: Dr. hab. Aleksandra Łukaszewicz
