installation
used plasterboards (drywall), paper, Graupappe, working clothes, irrigation system, healing products, carpet
700 cm x 500 cm x 200 cm
shown at
KVOST, Berlin, Germany
Dec, 2025 - Jan, 2026
Press release
The new installation Schamwand, conceived by Patryk
Kujawa for the KVOST SchauFenster (window display),
evokes both a shop window and a fitting room. Using
salvaged construction materials and healing products, he creates fragile, raw spaces in which memories intertwine with sensual imagination. The work draws from autobiographical perspectives on sexuality and social
background, moving within the tension between shame
and the desire to reveal it.
In his work, Kujawa constructs spaces where bodies can hide: claustrophobically narrow, intimate, and at times unexpectedly stagey. For the installation at KVOST, he works with plasterboard, a material roo- ted in his own biography. He uses so-called one-man boards, collected from people who no longer need them for various reasons. The workwear integrated into the installation comes from his family archive or private donations. These materials are complemented by paper and cardboard sculptures reminiscent of architectural
models.
Artist Statement
“In my work, I use materials from the construction site — for many a space of amplified, even toxic masculinity. I am interested in it rather as a place of exhaustion and fragility, where hidden fears, frustrations, and social and physical pressures accumulate. I come from a Polish working-class family in Szczecin; my father was a construction worker. His world—like that of many others—was shaped by physical depletion, quietly borne shame, and the constant attempt to endure. Their dreams were tied to the acceptance of subordination. This experien- ce shapes my perspective—also as a queer person for whom the construction site is a place of vulnerability, threat, and desire. Equally ambivalent to me is the figure of the construction worker: on one hand, the sensitive
father permeated by fear, forced to perform a role he could hardly carry; on the other, the object of queer fantasy—physical, raw and at the same time soft, desired through muscle and clothing.”
Photo: Valentin Wedde / Courtesy: Patryk Kujawa and KVOST, Berlin