INWARDS

The group selected by Maja, bringing together animators, social pedagogues, and engaged artists, has the task of conducting micro-research through creative practice. It consists of Marta Andrzejczyk – actress and culture animator; Ela Jabłońska – visual artist; Radek Kowalik – culture animator; Joanna Kubicka – cultural historian; Miłka Majczyno – culture animator; Arek Parasite – visual artist; Pola Rożek – ethnographer and cultural animator; Agnieszka Włodarska – psychologist of creativity and animator of culture; Piotr Zańko – social educator and me. And, of course, Maja Dobiasz-Krysiak as spiritus movens of the whole enterprise. We are to conduct our actions, referring to the methodologies used by „Pracownia”. Can ideas from several decades ago regain relevance in today’s reality?

We meet for the first time in Warmia in April. We explore information about the specificity of the Olsztyn group, meet some of its members, and visit places of former activities. Tracing these historical actions is not easy. Only a handful of blurry, black-and-white photos have survived, it is not known whether they document the most important actions. Similarly, places have changed. The former headquarters of „Pracownia” in Olsztyn, then a club teeming with alternative social experiments, turned into a commercial billiard room. Also, places of rural projects have transformed beyond recognition. Wandering in the footsteps of past actions, we ask ourselves what we are doing, what we are looking for here. We talk about the fact that by tracking the reality that has sunk into the ground, we build up myths. But is there anything wrong with that?

When earlier this year I mentioned on FB that I would be dealing with the subject of mud and that I would be inspired by the ideas of Joseph Beuys, Robert Knuth contacted me. He wrote that he met this outstanding artist in Düsseldorf. Also, about someone who checked that Beuys had made up the famous story of the Crimean Tatars treating his frostbite with fat for the sake of art. Maybe. But even if true, this crafted myth, with its potential of cultural-forming dynamite, is worth its weight in gold.

After returning from the April meeting, we formulate proposals for our research activities, which can be individual or collaborative. Initially, I am thinking about preparing a participatory action with the participation of local youth. With time, however, I conclude that the very limited time of our artistic residencies, one week only, would cause me to get stuck on the shallows of an activity that only pretends to establish a creative relationship with the residents. And I have always warned myself and others about this. That is why I decide on a solo project in reference to the final period in the history of „Pracownia” when after several years of intensive joint practice, its members focused on working inward (which, by the way, led to the breakup of the group).

I decide that my residence will be oriented around the theme of mud and marshes. During my spring visit, I could see that the area abounds in such places, even near the Węgajty Theatre. My project is supposed to have a performative character, based on “becoming friends” with the bog, experiencing it bodily, building a “love” relationship, and establishing a positive exchange with natural substances to which our culture has created negative connotations. Besides, Maja also draws attention to this aspect in her text Brud, czyli o regule geografii Interdyscyplinarnej Placówki Twórczo-Badawczej „Pracownia” (Dirt or the rule of the geography of the Interdisciplinary Creative and Research Institution “Pracownia”). Moreover, regarding the practices of “Pracownia”, I want to rely on the following borrowings of ideas: the reciprocity of man and landscape; experiencing a place; walking-seeing-creating practices; treading paths as well as bodily practice – unobvious and breaking existing habits.

I carry out the planned action in the village of Węgajty on June 24-30, 2023.

24.06.2023

I’m taking a taxi from Olsztyn to Węgajty because it seems that at the weekend it is the only transport option in that direction. On the radio listened to by a driver, there is information about the Wagner Group going to Moscow. It sounds so absurd that I involuntarily erase it from my mind.

I reach the house of Ela and Rajnold Goerigk, where I will be lodging. We know each other because we lived here during the April reunion of our team. In the kitchen, I take off my backpack and immediately sit down to lunch with a group of young people, actors involved in the evening performance at the nearby Węgajty Theatre. Beautiful faces…

In the evening, going to the performance of „Chronicles of the Night”, which, as usual in the case of this theater, is performed by a mixed team, combining professionals with those who occasionally practice theater and learn the craft during the workshops of the Other Theater School. A script for this performance is also built according to the same rule. Existing literary texts are mixed with those created especially for this occasion. They talk about insomnia, about war, about immigrants crossing the forest in search of a better future, about attempts to get closer to nature…

Later, most of the audience stays to spend the evening, which lasts until late at night, in the hospitable surroundings of the theatre. We play, sing, dance, and bake yeast cakes over the fire.

25.06.2023

In the morning I return to the theater to join the Day of Social Action organized by the creators of this place – Wacek and Mute Sobaszek. It is necessary to tidy up and prepare the building and its surroundings for the annual festival called „Theatre Village”, starting soon, on July 18. We clean the windows, prepare the room for the festival kitchen, and level the area that serves as a parking lot. Finally, over dinner for twelve, we have time to talk. Their topics include preparations for my action. Mute and Wacek are invaluable in suggesting various clues related to the aesthetic rework of the subject of wetlands. Wacek takes out the text of the treatise “Bogs” by one of the members of “Pracownia” – the recently deceased painter Tadeusz Piotrowski. It is an invaluable resource for me.

On the way back, I’m going to look at the nearby quagmire. Extremely picturesque. In this humid atmosphere, swarms of mosquitoes cut mercilessly…

26.06.2023

Maja is coming to interview me for the start of the residency. We discuss the assumptions of my project. We’re going to the swamp I visited the day before. Heat. Along the way, we talk about how this area lost its cultural identity after the post-war exodus of local settlers. And about how strong the need of new settlers was to mythologize this territory in their way, give it their interpretation, and build its attractiveness. Then we wander, following traces of houses that were settled in the 1980s as part of a specific „alternative settlement” movement that developed in eastern Poland during the martial law period. Artists, anthroposophists, and other people of culture, who were looking for a different place for themselves in the unbearable reality of the end of communism, at that time flocked to the colonies we visit.

27.06.2023

At 7:30 a thunderstorm wakes me up. A lightning strike, then a downpour. So, I stay in bed longer because I can’t plan to go out anyway. Then a long breakfast in the company of my hostess Ela and a theater educator Basia Szpunier, who took part in the performance. It’s good not to have to rush. Besides, this long-winded talk also has a cognitive value for me. In general, the structure of this residence allows me to perform what I call building collective knowledge. I talk about the assumptions of my action, which immediately meets the audience’s response. And so, Mutka is telling me about one of their first experiences after moving to Węgajty. About how someone’s calf started to drown in the swamp and Wacek had to help pull it out. And so, my landlady mentions their dead dog, which, already very old, fell into the pond in the evening. When he was pulled out, a swarm of sucked leeches hung from his belly. He was barely salvaged.

Ela herself is a very grateful listener. She says that thanks to the fact that so many exciting people pass through their house, she has the opportunity to listen to stories from different sides and does not have to travel anymore.

When it clears up before noon and the rain stops, I’m going to the swamp. The road has become muddy, and raindrops are dripping from the trees. It is extremely picturesque. I want to take a closer look at the life in the bog. There are plenty of green frogs – adults, tiny ones, and those in the form of tadpoles. Dense with mosquitoes that sit on the water now and then, raising circles on its surface. In this moisture, vineyards crawl out. Worms I can’t recognize crawl under my feet.

I find a four-meter-long pole with which I probe the bottom to see where I could go in. With even slight pressure, it sinks deep at the very edge. I measure. If I fell in there, I would dive up to my neck. So, I am looking for places with alder roots growing in the swamp. The ground is a bit more stable there. Elsewhere, I am stacking a few branches that will perhaps allow me to step without immediately sinking into the depths. I am inspecting places where to put a camera. After a while, I notice that a roe deer is circling me in the distance. When he faces me on the other side of the quagmire, he roars or rather barks at me in a terrible voice that carries far into this wasteland. Apparently, he wants to get me out of here. I am an intruder in his territory.

28.06.2023

In the morning I walk around the surrounding villages, taking advantage of the hot weather. Dramatic dark clouds are piling up over my head, but it is not raining. In the afternoon I return to the swamp. I want to continue studying the mysterious activity swirling in it, the movement of animals, and the magical transformation of plants, which, dying, become a life-giving ground for subsequent beings. I think about individual scenes of my action and try to match them to the available places.

I cannot stop thinking about the so-called Grauballe Man. This is a well-preserved mummified body of a young man, found in the 1950s in a peat bog in Danish Jutland. It is currently on public display at the Moesgaard Museum near Aarhus, which is why I have been able to look at it up close many times. It has fascinated me for many years.

29.06.2023

The sudden and unexpected failure of my stomach completely knocks me off my feet. I lie there all day, eating nothing and wondering if the action planned for the next day will even take place. Or is it my body’s reaction to the stress of preparation?

30.06.2023

I mobilize all my forces. I get up and pack to leave. Justyna Olimpia Zając, who will film my work, arrives. We go to the place. I had already decided to abandon the idea of completely submerging myself in the swamp, as this would almost certainly risk drowning. There are scenes on a relatively safe shore. I titled this action „Bog – friendship attempt”. So, it is about building relationships. That is why I divided my action into parts reflecting the process of building a new bond. In the beginning – anxiety, fear. I rope myself to a tree in case I lose my footing. Then comes distrust, and slow testing. I explore the bottom with a four-meter-long pole, walking around the quagmire, stepping on tufts of grass sticking out of the water.

My movements, completely dependent on the unpredictable ground, are clumsy. Again and again, I slip, wobble, and fall. This choreography was impossible to plan. And here I see the difference between a theatrical performance, where the actor’s gestures, although taken from reality, are aesthetically processed, and subjected to control. In the case of my action, it is different, because it takes place in the immediate area that dominates me, not the other way around. I can only surrender to it, knowing that I risk failure. Nature reigns over culture. The anthropocentric attitude does not apply here.

The next scene is the rapprochement, the breaking of distrust. I kneel in the mud and wash my legs, hands and face with it. I dip my hair in it. My linen, white dress becomes covered with natural „dirt”. This is an important moment. I mean the reversal of the accepted rationality: consciously soiling the clean instead of cleaning the dirty. And finally a touch, without which it is difficult to imagine a relationship. I’m lying on my back at the very edge of the marsh, my hair in the water. I am staying like this for a while…

After the action, with Wacek Sobaszek, who was an unexpected audience for my action, we go to the theater where I can take a shower. I’m flushing the swampy life off. Then we sit in the sun with Justyna, Wacek, and Mute. The conversation develops interestingly, and I am very sorry to end it. Wacek gives me his book Spiski życiowe (Life Notes). I know I will start reading it immediately.

Justyna and I return to Ela’s house and wait for a while for Maja, who is coming to record my coverage of the action. Then we immediately set off on our way back to the Tri-City.

It happened…