Modern industrial agriculture brings with it an unavoidable consequence: it alters the environment and, in turn, the climate. At the same time, it is especially vulnerable to these changes – unstable conditions, prolonged droughts, sudden floods.

The drive for profit demands intensification at any cost – land annexation, monocultures, pesticides, large-scale animal farming. The sequence continues with a lexicon of destruction: aggressive deforestation, soil drainage, rapid erosion, degradation of the natural landscape, elimination of species. In such conditions, water may cover the land – but only when tightly regulated. Without intervention, green turns to red.

Michał Adamski raises the alarm with the colour of a warning flag.

‘Responsible management minimises the negative impact of large-scale operations, restores balance and benefits biodiversity’. This statement, which now feels self-evident, echoes the legacy of Dezydery Chłapowski, a 19th-century pioneer of modern agriculture in the Greater Poland region.

Adamski – himself trained in agricultural studies – met with a practising farmer who applies methods rooted in those principles. The project, carried out on the family farm of Patryk Kokociński in Snowidowo and within the Dezydery Chłapowski Landscape Park, becomes a dialogue between past and future, bridging two eras: the historical agricultural landscape and the contemporary economy, with its vision of consciously shaped systems.

The artist documents relics of original farming practices, their revival and modern applications: water retention through natural streams and drainage channels; catch crops to replenish soil; rows of trees planted across fields to create habitats for insects and birds; skylark landing strips within cultivated zones. He analysed these time-tested, traditional techniques, now supported by modern technologies.

The project’s detective function is reinforced through infrared photography, camera-trap footage and thermal imaging. Infrared, with its chromatic inversion, transforms green into red.

Red becomes the dominant note of the narrative – a vivid filter, an intense frame for the acting, where – like in classical theatre – the gesture has to be bold enough to carry emotion to the furthest rows. The colour operates on multiple levels: for some, it signals alarm; for others, a sense of the unreal.

Yet for those long desensitised to green – nature’s sign of vitality – its transformation into vast expanses of red offers a stark reminder of the potential scale of loss.

Through this striking formal gesture, Adamski reveals the potential for new ways of seeing the essential questions before us – issues that concern all living beings, symbiosis with nature, unchecked consumption, waste, climate change, perhaps even the inevitability of catastrophe.

Exhibition open:
Monday–Thursday: 12:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Friday–Sunday: 12:00 AM – 8:00 PM