These metallic sculptures look like artifacts from another world
Otherworldly sculptures and installations that blur the boundaries between nature, technology and the human body, imagining unfamiliar forms of life and possible futures.
At first glance, the sculptures of Polish artist duo Inside Job could be mistaken for artifacts recovered from another world. Sharp metallic structures, organic textures and unfamiliar forms come together in objects that seem to exist somewhere between ancient relics, futuristic technology and living organisms.
Formed by artists Ula Lucińska and Michał Knychaus, Inside Job is a collaborative practice exploring speculative futures, ecological transformation and the evolving relationship between humans, nature and technology. Working across sculpture, installation and other media, the duo creates environments and objects that suggest alternative realities, often imagining what might emerge from a world transformed by technological and environmental change.
Their visual language is immediately recognizable. Industrial materials such as aluminum and steel are combined with softer, organic-looking surfaces, creating intricate structures that resemble armour, exoskeletons, botanical growths or unfamiliar biological systems. The resulting sculptures often feel as though they have been discovered rather than constructed.
Throughout their practice, the artists explore the possibility of new relationships between the natural and artificial. Their works frequently suggest hybrid organisms and imagined ecosystems, where technology no longer exists separately from nature but becomes part of its evolution.
Projects such as Paradise Rot, Will Spread and There Are Flowers That Are Born of Mud expand these ideas into sculptural installations and speculative environments. Rather than presenting a fixed vision of the future, the duo creates fragments of possible worlds, inviting viewers to imagine the systems, histories and life forms that might exist within them.
This approach is particularly visible in their 2019 work, Get down, get down Little Henry Lee and stay all night with me. Constructed from aluminum, steel, digitally printed silk and LED lights, the twin sculptural portals feature elaborate metallic structures surrounding deep red, organic-looking surfaces. Their symmetrical forms evoke protective armour or biological membranes, while the illuminated textures beneath suggest something almost alive.
The work is currently presented as part of Every Child Is a Mirror of Death, a group exhibition curated by Łukasz Kropiowski at Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej in Opole, Poland, on view until November 15, 2026.
What makes Inside Job's practice particularly compelling is its ability to make the unfamiliar feel strangely believable. Their sculptures seem to carry traces of both the past and the future, combining references to ancient artifacts, science fiction, natural history and contemporary technology without belonging entirely to any of them.
Through these imagined objects and environments, Inside Job invites us to consider a future where the boundaries between nature, technology and life itself become increasingly difficult to define.
Artists: Ula Lucińska and Michał Knychaus (Inside Job)
Featured artwork: Get down, get down Little Henry Lee and stay all night with me (2019)
Exhibition: Every Child Is a Mirror of Death, GSW Opole, Poland
Curator: Łukasz Kropiowski
Photography: Tomasz Koszewnik
