Dreams Are The Facts From Which We Must Proceed (2023) is the title of the kinetic installation by Joanna Piotrowska (b. 1985, Warsaw), presented in the windows of Villiger - Mode, a clothing store for Art|Basel Parcours. The store windows face the street, offering passersby an unexpected and unfamiliar scene, an epiphany with a surrealist flair. The windows display photographic images that have been cutout, enlarged, equipped with a motor and transformed into moving sculptures. The subject matter of the images belongs to the artist’s iconographic repertoire: close-ups of hands performing a simple yet enigmatic gesture. In this case, oversized hands caress portions of tree trunks and a rock in a repetitive motion driven by an unsophisticated mechanism that winks at the optical and mobile devices of the early modern era. The individual elements of the work—the natural elements, their textures and temperatures are familiar, yet the sculptures unleash a sense of uncanny that brings them closer to the dreamlike dimension. Perhaps it is because of their scale, their fragmentary nature, as if they were cut out of a context and isolated. The juxtaposition of the human body and the natural element evokes a desire to merge with nature, emphasized by the caressing gesture, on the one hand. On the other, the iteration of this mechanical—almost onanistic—movement casts a suspicious light on the intentions behind the caress. The human desire for communion with nature spills over into the—equally human—desire for material consumption. In the long run, gesture polishes stone and wood, domesticates natural materials, made ready for use and consumption; after all, we are in a commercial store.