ROcK SMOKA Exhibition Opening
The first event of the year within the project “Calendar of the NOWA FALA Foundation and HOTELOKO Collective 2025” is the opening of an exhibition by Karina Szutko, an artist from the HOTELOKO Company collective.
Date: 8 February 2025 / 7:00 PM
Venue: Centrum Promocji Kultury- Praga-Południe Cultural Promotion Center, ul. Podskarbińska 2, Warsaw
Admission: Free
The event is co-financed by the Capital City of Warsaw under the program “Warsaw Culture – works, projects, events.”
Project: “Calendar of the NEW WAVE Foundation and HOTELOKO Collective 2025”
Produced by: NEW WAVE Foundation
ROcK SMOKA: The Myth of Authenticity in a Disenchanted World
Welcome to the jungle!
ROcK SMOKA is a series of works dedicated to one of the most mysterious and powerful beings. However, dragons — omnipresent in mythology, legends, and pop culture — are increasingly being stripped of their natural environment day by day. They try to find their place in the 21st century. Overwhelmed by the city’s rush, they search for a new rhythm. A melody that will show them the way. I want to break free!
The contemporary dragon lives in a disenchanted era — a world where magic, mysticism, and harmony with nature give way to rationality, technology, and consumerism. Yet the essence of life is a return to authenticity — understanding oneself, one’s desires, and the rhythm that gives meaning to existence. Dragons, like humans, feel alienated. Overwhelmed by the overload of modern stimuli, they lose touch with what is intuitive and true. Will technology destroy what is primal, or will it create space for a new dance, a new harmony?
ROcK SMOKA is a clash between the era of technological noise and the awakening of our inner “self” — wild, free, and unrestrained, smells like teen spirit. It is an opportunity to discover your own dragon, because each of us carries one inside. We hear the cry of rebellion, the roar of the dragon. There is no room for falsehood in this sound. Will we manage to tune in again on the same waves? Hear each other? Dance to one melody? Shout who we really are? Take off our headphones for a split second and approach the zone we always run away from? Is this the end of ROcK SMOKA or just the beginning?
Let us listen to the breath of the dragon, the breath of life. Isn’t it about standing face to face with the unknown, asking the world: “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”
Karin Shot (Karina Szutko) – an artist working in painting, graphic design, poetry, performing arts, and contemporary dance. She took her first steps in the visual arts during classes at the Praga-Południe Cultural Promotion Center led by Kinga Pawełska and Andrzej Ziomek. Currently, she is a community instructor in the fine arts studio — drawing and painting — run by Robert Jankowski. The themes of her paintings focus on creating absurd, ironic symbolic collages accompanied by dragons. In recent years, she has realized exhibitions such as: “Mazurskie Smoki,” “Rok Smoka,” and “smOKO.”
