Justyna Werbel

Justyna Werbel works both as an active visual artist and curator. Werbel’s practice explores acute sonic awareness by interpreting audio recordings into visual sonic masses in motion. These works are meticulously developed into large and small scale drawings on paper, glass and canvas. Werbel investigates this practice through inhabiting and becoming sonically aware of her invisible topography, focusing on the body in a space that both receives and produces sounds. While some of her transcriptions are taken from minimally edited mono recordings made using a mobile phone which document the everyday experiences of the recordist, others are extracted from archived audio material. These detailed transcriptions are made with hand crafted tracing tools she has acquired and designed over several years of research and studio based practice. Werbel has both exhibited and presented in Poland, Germany, Israel the Czech Republic, Uruguay, Brazil, India and Canada.

Previously Werbel led the head of the productions department in Poland's newest Centre for Contemporary art TRAFO, where she spearheaded and curated the Plug In Project Room, an experimental space dedicated to supporting both local and international emerging artists.

Werbel has been the recipient of numerous grants, including support from the Adama Mickiewicz Institute, the Polish Institute in New Delhi, the Polish Institute in Tel Aviv as well as the outstanding scholastic achievement grant from the Polonia Centre in Canada.