JEŚLI/TO [IF/THEN] 🎨 Exhibition Dates: 03/10/2025 — 01/02/2026 We invite you to the vernissage on 03/10/2025 at 19:00. Free entry. Artists: - 2Girls1Comp - Andrei Chodera-Isakau - Anna Bidzilia - Cassie McQuater - Dorijan Šiško - Filip Kostić - Jan Możdżyński - Janne Schimmel - Joshua Citarella - Kévin Bray - Léa Porré - Levi van Gelder - Lucie Gottlieb - Maciej Krygier - Sara Bezovšek - Sebulec - Sonia Górecka - Theo Triantafyllidis - Tomas Sjögren - Wendi Yan - Wojtek Didkowski - Yi Xie - Yuliia Frolova Narrative Design: Stanisław Święcicki Exhibition Design: Elżbieta Szurpicka Visual Identity: Alexey Layfurov Curators: Sara Szostak and Marta Grytczuk Executive Producer: Julia Lipiec Technology Partner: Gleevery More info: https://u-jazdowski.pl/program/wystawy/jesli-to ─────────────────────────────── ABOUT THE EXHIBITION How do we tell stories today? Narratives do not develop linearly—they branch, fragment, and mislead. The group exhibition JEŚLI/TO at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art explores the conditionality of linguistic rule sets from which stories are constructed in the age of algorithms, games, and digital culture. The exhibition title, borrowed from programming language, refers to the most basic condition: if this happens, then that follows. We recognize this structure not only in code but also in prophecies, fairy tales, and everyday decisions. Every action unfolds between condition and consequence. Twenty-three international groups, artists—2Girls1Comp, Andrei Chodera-Isakau, Anna Bidzilia, Cassie McQuater, Dorijan Šiško, Filip Kostić, Jan Możdżyński, Janne Schimmel, Joshua Citarella, Kévin Bray, Léa Porré, Levi van Gelder, Lucie Gottlieb, Maciej Krygier, Sara Bezovšek, Sebulec, Sonia Górecka, Theo Triantafyllidis, Tomas Sjögren, Wendi Yan, Wojtek Didkowski, Yi Xie, and Yuliia Frolova—explore narrative as both technology and ideology. Their works use game mechanics, interactive installations, speculative fiction, and glitch strategies (intentional use of digital errors as artistic means), showing how stories can be written, rewritten, or disrupted. The exhibition suggests we live in a post-narrative state. Storytelling has not ended but spills into new forms. Stories appear between what we choose and what chooses us; they permeate screens and devices, slipping beneath the threshold of consciousness. JEŚLI/TO shows that even the smallest choice—a glance, a step, a pause—can redirect a story. Many works celebrate breakdowns: glitches, stutters, and errors are methods here, not failures. They create cracks through which new meanings slip, building moments that allow stories to unexpectedly go in different directions. These carriers of dissonance point to the politics of narrative: who can tell the story, who is written into it, and what remains unsaid. The exhibition also asks how game logic shapes our understanding of life. Save points, respawns, grinding (repetitive, usually monotonous actions), NPCs (Non-Player Characters), and main character roles are no longer just metaphors—they become conditions through which we experience and imagine reality. JEŚLI/TO does not use games to illustrate art but assumes they are tools for experiencing alternative worlds, as reality increasingly resembles a game. The narrative accompanying the exhibition—unfolding in the multi-threaded spaces of Ujazdowski Castle—is built in dialogue with the presented works. It serves as a guide, counterpoint, sometimes disruption, reminding us that every exhibition is also a story experienced in a unique way. JEŚLI/TO does not propose solutions or escape routes from our conditional present. Instead, it offers a space for conscious, critical, and sometimes playful engagement with these conditions. ─────────────────────────────── All options lead forward. The exhibition has already begun. You are already part of its calculations.
