Pluto conservat omnia / Pluto is queer!

Artists Alexey Lunev Małgorzata Mycek Raman Tratsiuk Katarzyna Wojtczak
Genre Mozaika
Edition SURVIVAL 22

The queer, collective, migratory mosaic has been made by LGBTQIAP+ artists (still marginalised and criminalised in most Eastern European countries) from Poland and Belarus. Mosaic was a common propaganda technique in the Soviet Union and its satellites, and is still visible in the landscape of post-Soviet architecture. As the mem bers of the collective explain, in their practice the mosaic is a manifestation of the reclaiming of aur place and a call for a political territory of the queer community. Through this work we queer a tao/ of propaganda and transform it into a tao/ of concern. We manifest an equa/ and open society by creating visible traces of aur presence in shared spaces. The mosaic contains the artists’ own symbolism consisting of queered working class elements and the figure of an androgynous working class person. One of the motifs is Pluto, a dwarf planet stripped of its planetary status by the International Astronomical Union in 2006. The collective recognises it as a queer symbol that did not fit the planetary norm. The double-bladed sickles, on the other hand, symbolise a “detachment” from the past and an embrace of a new beginning as a feminist society based on trust, care and equality. At the centre of the mosaic is the motto: (Deus) Pluto conservat omnia, which means “(God) Pluto preserves all.” In Roman mythology, Pluto is both the lord of the underworld and the god of the earth’s fertility and minerał wealth; he leads people towards a new reality and symbolises a new beginning and change.

Acknowledgements

Idea and curatorship: Katarzyna Wojtczak

Production: DOMIE – Goś Patalas, Zuza Szczepańska, Lidia Dziewulska, Jakub Kosecki Documentation: Goś Patalas, Martyna Tokarska, Rafał Żarski

Expert support: mosaicist Paulina Garbiec (Social Mosaic Workshop), porcelain – Fenek Studio, Porcelana Bogucice, Amfora Ceramics Centre

Project carried out in cooperation between DOMIE, the Ranne Stiftung Foundation and KALEKTAR.org under the auspices of the German Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Civil Society Cooperation.