Parallax is an exchange between ASP Katowice in Poland and Chelsea College of Arts, London. Coordinated by Pawel Mendrek and Martin Newth the project has included exhibitions in Katowice and London. Parallax sets out to ask questions about what an art school is and what it might become. Parallax acknowledges that an art school’s function is a test site: one that allows for discourse to be enacted through making work, where ideas and approaches, methods and technologies are shared, challenged and developed.
The first exhibition took place in Poland in June–September 2015. Parallax #1 marked the completion of the Katowice Fine Art Academy’s new building. The work responded directly to the architecture of the purpose-built art school and was installed in the months before the students moved in. Parallax #2 took place in 2016. The art school building at Chelsea, steeped in history and re-imagined over generations of occupants, provided a very different context for Parallax #2. The artworks, made in a range of media including film, photography, text, performance and sculpture responded to what an art school may be: as a place, an idea, a community, a set of histories or as an architectural site.

Parallax #2 installation. Chris Wainwright, Ben Fitton and Robin Jenkins