GOTHIC FEVER
Art Programme of the 26th TAURON New Horizons International Film Festival
BWA Wrocław Studio
Ruska 46a/301
Wrocław, Poland
24 July – 28 August 2025
Gothic Fever is devoted to a fascination with darkness — experienced beneath the light of two suns. One burns over the Latin American tropics. The other illuminates summer in Wrocław.
The point of departure is a section dedicated to the phenomenon of Latin American tropical gothic. Through this exhibition, we expand the geography of the search for gothic sensibility; its manifestations in Latin America find both their counterpoints and affinities in works created in Poland.
Gothic sensibility is a child of modernity, born in the shadow cast by the light of the Enlightenment. The exhibition presents contemporary manifestations of this tradition. Gothic sensibility readily draws on conventions and motifs derived from the world of fantasy. Yet the stakes at play remain real — as real as the darker sides of existence. Modern reason attempts to repress them; gothic offers a way of experiencing them. Constantly changing its costumes, it adapts to new technologies, media, and forms of life. The affects and longings it expresses remain universal, although they take different forms across cultural contexts.
Latin America and Poland — the places from which the works presented in the exhibition originate — are geographically distant, yet connected by a post-Catholic imagination and by their status as peripheral to the modern project. Here, the baroque exuberance, sensuality, and corporeality of tropical gothic encounter the mist-shrouded, cold-shiver imagination of Central Europe. The temperatures of gothic fantasies may differ, yet we believe they are symptoms of the same fever.
The exhibition is announced alongside Maria Joranko’s residency, taking place in Wrocław from 13 to 23 June. Works created during the residency will be presented as part of the exhibition.
Artists: Niles Atallah, Cristobal Leon and Joaquin Coccina, Maurycy Gomulicki, Konrad Gubała, Maria Joranko, Church of Nihilists (Justyna Baśnik, Paweł Baśnik, Jędrzej Sierpiński), Theo Montoya, Mrozia 11, Wiktor Stribog, and Aleksandra Waliszewska
Curators: Joanna Stembalska, Ewa Szabłowska, Stach Szabłowski
Exhibition Design: Church of Nihilists (Justyna Baśnik, Paweł Baśnik, Jędrzej Sierpiński)
Visual Identity: Zbiok (Sławek Czajkowski)
The exhibition is co-organised by BWA Wrocław and supported by the festival’s Artistic Award partner programme.
The project is supported by the British Council.