Key thoughts from Michał "Pan Miś" Walczyk, uncut and translated, revealing his world, process, and identity.
“Yes, it’s partly tied to my name, and the ‘Pan’ (Mr.) part came because strangers call me ‘sir’ — that inspired me. (...) I prefer artists to use my nickname, and everyone else to use my real name. What I dislike most is when people say ‘Michaś’ or ‘Miśu’. ‘Michaś’ was for when I was little — that annoys me. I want to be treated seriously.”
```“When I don’t know what I want to say, or something like that, I prefer to sculpt something…”
```“More or less, yes, because reality annoys me sometimes and I prefer to escape into my fictional world, because in reality, what annoys me is that there’s a lot of… a lot of chasing money and such.”
“Some I invented entirely, and for example, some that are here I created out of sadness, for example, longing for one grandfather, because one grandfather was a miner - that's why I make miners, and one was a tailor and he's also gone.”
“That Apocalypse was also inspired by the movie 'Terminator', because it showed how some… I'll say it openly - how some asshole, because I'm in my Shed, how some asshole invented some computer system which then rebelled against people and wanted to exterminate humanity, that inspired me, that if people blindly believe in technology like artificial intelligence - it could end up like in Apocalypse or Terminator.”
“It matters to me because I would like someone to see it, here in Poland, or further, abroad, not just in the Czech Republic (...) so Hungarians, or Slovaks, or even some Austrians, some Germans would notice. Yes, some artists from those countries, so they would notice, not just… Not 'normal' people, but artists like that.”