Włosy Babci (Grandma's hair - Family stories)

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"Grandma's hair - family stories, collages, film and performance, 2023.

The art project was based on conversations with my closest family members.

I collected family photographs, old and dusty, which brought out various emotional memories. Among them was a photo of my great-grandfather, who was a railwayman and allegedly died falling under a train.

After talking to my uncle, it turned out that he had been a member of the SS and died at the end of the war when Hitler was doing "purges" among his soldiers.

After the Second World War, Great-grandmother, then already a widow, returned to Maciejow (formerly known as 'Maxdorf'). Waiting for them was a 'Welcoming Committee' who poured manure on them, pumping it out of a near puddle. They called it "cleansing them of their Germanness." They had all their possessions with them, it was impossible to wash the stinking filth off the white linens. My grandfather did not want to talk about it; only after his death did my uncle mention it.

What captivated me in these stories above all was the aspect of "cleansing." And how there are many such stories in our house that are not talked about, that are denied. Nonetheless, the history weighs on family members, even if they did not experience it themselves.

I reached out to research texts under the topic of transgenerational trauma, creating collages from them. I then travelled to Maciejów, where I conducted a Performance and found family films related to this place.

I wanted to vividly recreate the atmosphere of a bygone reality, still felt - the images of memories included in the art project as distorted photographs.

How to talk about painful memories? How to overcome them without forgetting or denying them? How do family stories shape our identity?