Introducing Katarzyna Rakowska

135 artists are taking part in "Inside Job" which takes place on the 7th and 8th of April on Level 6 of Tate Modern. Over the next few weeks The Rebel Magazine will be chatting to some of the Tate staff who are showing their artwork. Today it's the turn of Katarzyna Rawoska

Q) Where did you grow up and what kind of education did you receive? "I grew up in the middle of the natural world... on the outskirts of the village in the north-west part of Poland. During the Summers, amid the harvest, the stokes with frogs and mouses were those who were more likely to play the games of hide and seek in the crop of fields than me, as other children had never drummed theirs dreams on leaves in the near by orchid. There were four of us in my local primary school and for one of my fellow souls I was even a distant auntie. Apparently three people are sufficient enough to form a social group. With a spare number, did we make one? At that time it was not so apparent, as the reference discourse had just seeded itself in my understanding of the social world. However, looking back now, I can be pretty sure that the prism of minimal group paradigm wasn't something that penetrated our souls. Moreover, the human element that gazed into the Universe through the light of the distant past, appeared to be only a small element of the Cosmic life. To see the Milky Way banks washed away by the Dark Rift, for the little child's mind was a quite an event in the middle of the lonely night. So there was that feeling that we lived on the small and tiny Earth, which was all dressed in the Joyful Beauty - the Nature. Her colors, textures, smells, tastes, sounds, mannerisms and performances inspired rituals and were embroiled with vivid imagination in folklore. Everybody felt part of the Nature, everybody felt an artist. I was no different. My first future movie I recorded with my eyes as I felt that the Nature was completely misunderstood not only by the city type but by the God Himself. I tried to captivate all the beauty and wonders of the World as I could not understand, why some God from the huge and beautifully illustrated book, hidden at he back of my Grandma's wardrobe, was going so mad at sometimes using her as a prop. I wanted Him to leave Her and me alone. The screening will take place after my death, but I am afraid you are not invited as it is a personal dispute between me and God. But in all that idyll picture there was something else... I heard different sort of tunes that were luring into my breathing space but originated somewhere else, somewhere beyond the horizon line. I kept them listening but the music hardly made any sense to me. However, it had lost me. That sound-web cacophony that I found myself caught into, swiped me away from the center of my primary horizon ring and end up studying Sociology at the Nicolas Copernicus University in Torun. All that experience only created more questions as I am not closer in understanding the human nature even when I come to contact with people on the daily bases."

Q) How long have you been working at the Tate and what's the best show you've seen there? "My relationship with Tate has been on and off. Someone or something is trying to save some energy, so at the moment, since opening the new addition to Tate, formerly known as the Switch House, I am on as a Visitor Assistant. My upbringing has hugely influenced the way how I experience exhibitions, I treat them as seasons in the calendar year. In Poland unofficially we have six and in the past I could never decide, which one is more beautiful. The advantage of working at Tate is that within minutes you are in the different worlds as we have so many shows running at this same time. In this context the theory of parallel worlds seems quite feasible. Have you ever seen the film Coherence by James Ward Byrkit? At times, it feels like I am never sure to which version of my colleague I am walking into."

After 17 years of living in London... I am let's just say I'm a certain kind of tourist. A tourist that's on a...permanent vacation as Allie from the Permanent vacation by Jim Jarmusch perfectly edges out any hopes for the feeling of a... permanent settler. Saint George's Road comes from the series Nomad Shot where all the photos were taken within the walking distance from my previous temporary accommodation in Elephant and Castle. Photoshop allowed the vivid unconsciousness to well up the need for merging my own cultural imprint with the flickering phantasmagorias trembling in the front of my eyes on the streets of London. I transferred this vision on canvas and treated with charcoals, pencils and paints. Despite all these efforts to unveil the truth, I am still not sure if I was visualizing them or they were really out there... these conversations, dramas and comedies, interactions between humans, the build environment and all these images probing each other not only in turns but also in the blink of an eye... and to what extend the actions within and between the worlds still take their toll and iconize my own dreams within the frames of the liquid modernity as Zygmunt Bauman called it? There is another aspect to this work. St George is a patron of England. Are the stamps are some kind of shamanic footprints that are closing him down. And in the light of Brexit, what and to whom I am about to deliver and what will happen if I am not."

Q) How can people find out more about your work - do you have a website or do Instagram? As a sociologist at heart I strongly believe that everyone is an artist because we are all constantly interpreting the world. The only place that you can see my stuff are on the walls of my flat. Viewing only by appointment ha ha! Q) Is there anything you have to declare / do you have a favourite quote, thought or joke you'd care to share? "What could I add? Well... maybe a few lines to accompany my piece as apparently exhibit only one work I am by default broken into pieces, however it might further explore the tourist syndrome.

If life is a tunnel which takes you From one stage of being to another All the darkness in my life makes sense God knows I like to voyage during the night So he puts me on the midnight express To make this passage bearable He lets me sleep one third of my journey On the night train I pass by everything The only thing that passes through me Are my half formed dreams Sometimes I stop for fifteen minutes On the platform in the middle of nowhere Sometimes I get out of the train And bask my soul out there Looking for the spare smiles to dream about In the next part of my journey But only if life is the tunnel which takes me From one stage of being to another All the darkness in my life will make sense

"Inside Job": An exhibition of art by Tate Staff will take place on Level 6 of the Blavatnik Building of Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern