Songs of Belarusian Polesia

28 listopada – 3 grudnia

• Studio Na Grobli, ul. Na Grobli 30/32

Workshop led by Olga Emalianchik

• Na Grobli Studio, 30/32 Na Grobli Street

A demonstration of the work developed in workshop led by Olga Emalianchik, and a screening of the film Olmany

Admission free

 ARTISTIC GUIDANCE: Jagna Knittel and Przemysław Wasilkowski

The wide, perfect roads. The collective farms, endless fields, barns as far as the eye can see, the ubiquitous huge agricultural machinery. All neat and clean. But go a little farther and you reach Europe’s largest marshes. Try as they might, Soviet authorities failed in their efforts to reclaim this land and build a motorway. The bolota (marshes) are generous – providing a fair income to cranberry pickers – but command respect – they are dangerous. And it has been this way for centuries. The marshes date back to an ancient world that lives on in the local people, preserved in songs, folk stories and attitudes. You just need to know how to ask.

We do not search for traces of ancient ways of thinking to create a sensation. We do it to see human affairs from a different perspective; to get a different angle, different plans – ones that have been shut out of modern-day culture – to speak about life, death, love.

The demonstration will include photos and recordings made in 2011 in Belarus in villages near Pinsk and Stolin as part of a project called “Voices of Europe. Traditional Songs of Polesia in Contemporary Culture”, a collaborative effort of Polish, Belarusian and Ukrainian artists.

The project, run by the Panorama of Cultures Association, is part-funded by the Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of Joint Polish and Belarusian Activities 2011.