Andrzej Wasilewski: The Albedo Effect 78° 12.2’ N, 015° 35,3 E"

March 28–April 11, 2026, Spitzbergen Artist Center, Vei 100.2 Longyearbyen, Norway 9170. Opening: March 28, 2026.

The first exhibition of the traveling, process-based project the Albedo Effect by Andrzej Wasilewski, curated by Stanisław Ruksza begins in Spitsbergen Artist Center in Longyearbyen (Svalbard).

The artistic concept of the Albedo Effect is an extension and continuation of The Absolute Factory by Andrzej Wasilewski—the black project, which was connected to the broad notion of coal in philosophical, geopolitical, sociological, and artistic dimensions. The Absolute Factory—the black project—referred to Karel Čapek’s concept of the total combustion of matter (coal) at 100% in order to obtain an unlimited source of energy, which became the starting point for the creation of a cycle of black artistic installations. The Albedo Effect—the white project, in apparent opposition to The Absolute Factory—the black project—is intended as a concept of symbolic unveiling. The artistic installations of The Absolute Factory were covered / concealed with coal on both a literal and symbolic level.

The name Albedo (in physics: the coefficient of radiation reflection) suggests a transition from blackness (which absorbs light) to whiteness (which reflects it). However, this process carries a significant ambiguity on the symbolic level: Unveiling may lead to openness, transparency, illumination, and purification, but it may also reveal something no one wishes to encounter (for example, dangerous bacteria or viruses from thousands of years ago) that had been concealed as a result of various processes (such as ice ages).

Melting may signify transformation, plasticization, and transition into a new state, but it may also imply disappearance, the blurring of boundaries, loss of form, and submersion into fluidity.

The Albedo Effect is therefore not a simple, unambiguous whitening of the black project, but a complex process which, through the act of purification, reveals new, ambivalent qualities and questions.

The premise of the Albedo Effect artistic project is to travel to various locations around the world, with different stops taking the form of exhibitions, presentations, interventions, artistic gestures, and collecting audio-visual or quasi-scientific materials. These places will designate distinct points on the world map, defined by their latitude and longitude coordinates.

Ultimately, these points—and their positions in relation to one another—will be symbolically connected, forming an irregular configuration—a shape that will then serve as the basis for creating a synthetic super-glacier, symbolically covering the world in the dystopian era of the Anthropocene.

Artist: Andrzej Wasilewski / Curator: Stanisław Ruksza (TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art) / Cooperation: TRAFO Center for Contemporary Szczecin, Poland.