“If I would not be an artist, I would become a historian” – says Mikołaj Sobczak whose mosaic proposes an explosive reading of history of the commons. At the heart of it lies the German Peasant Wars with its first call for equal and just access to the common resources on the European continent. Another layer presents a Milpa – an Indigenous cultivation method, where corn, beans and squash support each other in their growth and stimulate the fertility of the soil. This Native American practice is also known as Three Sisters, recalling Anton Chekhov’s play in which the characters long to escape their circumstances. The astrological sigils, earthly elements and cosmic rhythms appear alongside the contemporary symbols of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement, the scenes of metal and rare earth mining, alluding to techno-feudalism and corporate billionaires exploiting the planet.  

Are we, in our earthly existence, like an uroboros – a serpent devouring its own tail in a continuous cycle of destruction and renewal? At the centre, the ‘decapitated head’ of Thomas Müntzer, the assassinated leader of the peasants uprising, radiates a rainbow-coloured halo. It is a sign of hope that, according to the alchemical tradition, even the worst poison can be turned into a remedy, when one is ready for it.


Mikołaj Sobczak was born in 1989 in Poznań and lives and works in Düsseldorf and Warsaw. 


Presented with the support of the Polish Institute in Berlin.