Szpilman Award 2008: Winner
Kamila Szejnoch -
'Swing'
Kamila Szejnoch installs a tiny swing at the monumental bronze 'Berling Army
Soldier' in Warsaw. She suggests a change in the function of the monuments,
attempting to build a bridge between the present and the past, adding a contemporary
layer distinct from their original style and function. She asks, what a
particular memorial actually refers to and what kind of history it conceals
Kamila Szejnoch about her project Swing:
(Swing is her first realized part of the series Carousel Slide Swing)
The project Carousel Slide Swing aims to pursue a dialog with the
space and history of Warsaw. This is a dialog with memorials that
served as communist propaganda, such as the commemoration of the
Polish-Soviet brotherhood in arms and the liberation of Warsaw in
1945. Although such memorials have been consigned to the historical
scrapeheap we can still meet them in the streets and parks. If the time
of tearing down monuments is over, maybe we should change our
approcah to those that remain.
The project not only allowed me focus on the space of my home city
(Warsaw) but also to live the history anew. To suggest change in the
function of the monuments is an attempt to build a bridge between the
present and the past, to add a contemporary layer distinct from their
original style and function. The 'dead' approached more actively becomes
more vivid and palpable _ encouraging people to consider waht a
particular memorial actually refers to and waht kind of history it
conceals.
The history is not unabiguous. For example the idea of Swing is bades
on a contrast between the monumental bronze Berling Army Soldier
and a tiny individual swung by a big hand of history. For me, it is a
communist propaganda monument from a former era, but at the same
time I understand that from the Berling Army soldier's point of view
it is a well-deserved tribute paid to his sacrifice. This is an example of
how much history can differ from the perspectives of individual and
collective memory. My aim is to make this complexity and ambiguity
more conspicuous, to show the relation between an individual versus
the historical machine.
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