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
