Of Stone, Wood, Light, and What Kamień, Drewno, Światło I Co
Photography
2024
Wining Project of Art Lives Here Artist Residency by Leonardo Hotels, Warsaw (PL)
“To rebuild a homeland, we started with stones and wood. In the end, we brought the light back to the city.”
Warsaw is a city where every stone and shadow tells a story. During his residency in this layered urban landscape, interdisciplinary artist Tianjun Li created Of Stone, Wood, Light, and What—a photographic series that examines the city’s intertwined histories of ruin, survival, and reinvention.
Inspired by “KAMIEŃ I CO (Stone and What),” a mural painted on the remnants of a tenement house in the Wola district, the project reflects on Warsaw’s dual identity: a city reborn from near-total destruction, where modern skyscrapers rise alongside ruins that persist as quiet witnesses to the past. For Li, this fragile coexistence became a framework to reconsider not only Warsaw’s resilience but also the broader human experience of rebuilding after loss.
In this work, Li gathers fragments from the cityscape—stones from construction sites, weathered wood, and fleeting city lights—and layers them with archival imagery and scenes of contemporary life. These elements act as both literal and symbolic "building blocks," forming a reimagined Warsaw where the boundaries between memory and imagination blur. Drawing on Marianne Hirsch’s theory of post-memory, the series reframes ruins as sites of conversation: carriers of pain, remembrance, and the human capacity for transformation.
Of Stone, Wood, Light, and What transcends documentation, unfolding as a poetic reflection on resilience and creativity. It reveals how cities, like their inhabitants, are shaped by loss yet persist in their search for light and belonging. The project challenges viewers to reconsider their own notions of home, memory, and the enduring spirit of renewal.
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Stone Pattern, Boy, and the Uprising Old Town Moon
Brick, Construction Materials in the Old Town, and the Skyscrapers
Children and the Giant Wood
Fallen Tree and the Shadow of a Girl
People in the City at Midnight, and a Milky Way of Stone
During my artist residency in Warsaw, a single mural stayed with me. Every evening as I returned to my hotel, I passed a ruined tenement house bearing the words “KAMIEŃ I CO (STONE AND WHAT)”. It stood quietly amidst the city's bustle, a haunting yet defiant reminder of the past. That wall seemed to carry more than its cracks—it held stories, fragments of lives once lived, and the echoes of a city that refuses to forget.
On the final weekend of my residency, I found myself among crowds celebrating the anniversary of Warsaw’s Old Town reconstruction. It was more than a commemoration; it was a declaration of resilience. I watched as people celebrated not just the city’s survival but their collective act of reclaiming and reimagining their home, stone by stone. I was deeply moved by their determination, their belief that even from ruins, something stronger, something meaningful, can emerge.
This photography series is my response to that spirit. I sought to gather the city's fragments—stones scattered in construction sites, the contours of weathered walls bearing witness to history, the glow of city lights at midnight, and the quiet presence of fallen wood in the park. Each image felt like a piece of a larger puzzle, a material imbued with memory. By layering these elements with images of people, present-day cityscapes, and archival materials, I wanted to create something beyond documentation: an imagined cityscape that connects past and present, reality and possibility.
This work is a tribute to Warsaw and its people—a reflection of their ability to hold onto light even in the face of darkness. It is about more than rebuilding physical structures; it is about reconstructing hope, identity, and belonging. In Warsaw, I learned that home is not simply where we begin—it is what we make, again and again, from the fragments we carry with us.
Of Stone, Wood, Light, and What was the winning project of the 2024 Art Lives Here Artist Residency by Leonardo Hotels in Warsaw (PL) and is now part of its permanent collection.