PODŻYCIE/UNDERLIFE/NARRACJE FESTIVAL/GDAŃSK 2023

Look under the surface to see the underlife, a parallel world structured in reverse to the sun-filled, illuminated one. In the underlife, what is human intertwines with what is non-human. Corridors of pushed away memories, supported by the bones of the earth, migrate together with roots and become displaced. Their cramped spaces absorb snippets of stories about women from Orunia’s Magdalenenheim. The main occupation of residents of this “asylum for fallen girls” was work in the laundry. Fragments of stories permeate the structure of the ground, nestling into it with the particles of poured out lather and water. This water remembers using colours. White dress – grey water. Red blouse – pink water. Blue trousers – blue water. What about tears? Tears have their separate arteries in the underlife: evaporating from time to time, marking their presence, squeezing through grass and earth. Today, the area of the former Evangelical cemetery is covered by a park, railway tracks, a clinic and a block of flats. This is where I place my story. This is where I place vessels filled with coloured liquid, joining them in a line that arcs a spectral map of this place. Imagine: women standing in a semi-circle, crying, their tears falling into ceramic vessels placed at their feet. Warmth and pain trickle down into corridors of the underlife. Water exists in different states, but when it evaporates, it connects with our breaths and forgotten stories. You will hear one of them when you put on the headphones – an attempt at giving the voice to the forgotten protagonists of this place. When you take a stroll through the park, listen carefully to the words. When you go off the paths, feel the breaths. When you look at the ground beneath your feet, look for what’s deeper inside – the signs of the underlife