It's springtime. A late cloudy afternoon. Light pierces through the solid sheet of clouds. The sky looks like a canvas overexposed by a lamp. We are hiking with a workshop group and an artist through the Bytom heap. It's true that the sun sets in the west, but somehow it's different here than every day in a city in southern Poland.

We feel like we are on Mars. We talk about this impression, looking at the dunes of rusty sand around us and at the strangely colored horizon.

We don't know where we're going or what will come of it. We walk, feeling enthusiasm and a desire to do something together that goes beyond the everyday. We talk, we are a little silent, sometimes we stop finding puzzling objects in the sand and wondering where they could have come from.

The limits of our field of vision and our actions are often beliefs and illusions, to which we yield. By attaching ourselves to fixed patterns, we lose our attentiveness and alertness to phenomena that go beyond the horizon of what we know. By experimenting, by changing our perspective, by questioning reality, by looking critically at imposed schemes, we are able not only to go beyond pre-given truths and explore their validity, but also to discover new concepts and phenomena. New worlds.

When we wander with different groups through Bytom's streets and corners, we look at reality together from other perspectives. We examine what hides behind the horizon, behind what we consider certain and fixed. During our meetings, we build together a safe space where we can freely share ideas, insights, feelings. We can experience surprises together, not knowing and searching, questioning what is already said and named, missing the mark and coming to a conclusion, implementing ideas and turning fantasies into reality. To feel satisfaction and surprise ourselves with the fact that we are able to create something that we would not have come up with not long ago or that seemed impossible yesterday.

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The exhibition "Now I see that this is an illusion" sums up the Baza Project carried out at the Kronika Contemporary Art Center since 2021. The project engages the youngest residents of Bytom in creative activities. During the workshops, young people have the opportunity to meet artists and take artistic action with them in the urban space.

Creating together is an impulse for young people to do their own explorations, develop a critical attitude and creative thinking. It is intended to shape in young people a sense of empowerment and make them realize that through art they can enrich the space in which they live every day with their point of view.