"Let's meet again"
The premise of the project "Let's meet again" from the 3rd edition of the "Wena" Grant Program competition of the Starak Family Foundation titled "The world from my window” was to create and present five artistic installations by students Karolina Bronisz, Anna Karpińska, Jagoda Chaciołka, Magdalena Opalinska, Katarzyna Janeczko and Dominika Wlodek from the Visual Arts School Complex on selected streets and yards in Lublin.
The motivation and goals of the students were: artistic intervention in neglected, and therefore gray and sad urban space, social engagement of residents, rebuilding of ties - disturbed due to pandemic isolation, initiating and creating new relations among students, teachers, neighbors. The project was modified in terms of assumptions and implementation. Different means of artistic expression were used than those originally envisaged in the application on the basis of which the Foundation awarded the grant. Below we present the modules of the project completed in 2021.
- "Window on the people".
The component assumed the creation of a mural on the wall of the courtyard at 79 Lubartowska Street. The mural was to present a collage of children's drawings illustrating a dream view from a window. In front of the mural, a wooden frame was to be installed as a symbolic „window providing a view on children's dreams”. Finally, due to the technical condition of the building, the mural was not painted on it. The mural was replaced with a painting created by students together with children - residents of the tenement house at Lubartowska Street in Lublin. The work on the painting was preceded by two workshops: in the courtyard and at the Happy Childhood Association (Stowarzyszenie Szczęśliwe Dzieciństwo), where children painted their perceptions of their dream view from the window. Then Anna Karpińska, a student, designed and made a collage of the children's works, which she then transferred with other students onto a painting that was hung on the facade of the tenement house at Lubartowska 79 Street in Lublin.
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"Bird Stories".
The installation presents ceramic, glazed bird forms, hung on trees, in the courtyard at Zamojska Street and Lubartowska Street. The bird works were made during a school ceramics workshop conducted by Oliwia Beszczyńska, a graduate of the Lublin Visual Arts Department, with the participation of children from the Agape Association daycare center. Birds decorated two courtyards, bringing an artistic touch and color to the urban space. Birds also decorate the shop window of the "Grela" bakery on Zamojska street in Lublin.
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"Bench - Our Moment".
The aim of this activity was to design original benches under the guidance of a woodcarving teacher - Mr. Wojciech Koryciński, and to make them with students together with the inhabitants of 22 Zamoyska Street in Lublin. The benches placed around the trees in the courtyard were meant to be conducive to meetings of residents, conversations, to give respite and rest, and to be a decorative element of applied art in urban space. Meeting in the surroundings of the well-tended garden was to be a social incentive for neighborhood meetings. Ultimately, the project is an installation consisting of four benches, made of plywood, placed in the space where residents of the courtyard at Lubartowska Street in Lublin like to meet. Positive and encouraging inscriptions appeared on the seats: „Have a good tomorrow", "Nice to see you".
- „Hanging gardens".
According to the original concept, the installation was to present flowers, hanging from a railing, by storied cells, at Lubartowska Street in Lublin - which were to constitute the exact „window view" of the residents of the opposite tenement house. Flowers made of various materials were to be created together with residents during workshops taking place in the courtyard space. The flower installations, in the form of garlands, were made during two meetings between the students and the residents under the guidance of a textile teacher Ms. Anna Łoś, and created an atmosphere of a colorful festival.
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"Dream Balcony".
Originally the authors designed this installation in the form of a "Dream Balcony". The idea was for the residents to throw cards containing their dreams into a specially dedicated box. Then all the written dreams, in the form of plaques, were to be hung on strings on the balcony of the headquarters of the Academy of Creativity. Pulling one of the strings would trigger the next one - a kind of lottery game of drawing dreams and recognizing human desires. Eventually, the concept was modified. Suggestions for dreams were collected in boxes set up in stores on Zamojska Street in Lublin. Then, in the common room of the Agape Association, children and youth burned the content of their dreams onto flat boards, which were finally placed on the trellis of Mr. Dariusz Jedlina's insurance company in Zamojska Street in Lublin.
All the social activities planned and implemented by the students in the project were inspired by their personal experience of isolation during the time of remote learning. The cooperation of the Lublin visual arts students with the local community contributed to strengthening neighborhood integration and re-establishing relationships with peers and younger colleagues. Part of the installation was created during common room workshops.
Agape Association and Happy Childhood Foundation Academy. The students worked with children and youth living in Lubartowska and Zamojska streets in Lublin.
The project was supposed to conclude with a joint visit to the courtyards and watching the installations, in the atmosphere of a neighborhood festival for the participants of the project, city residents, guests, and tourists. The finale of the project finally took place at school, where the presentation of the documentation of the workshops took place in the school corridor. We cannot write more about the realisation of this project, because we relied on photographic documentation which was limited to a few pictures, and there was no film documentation or publication on the school's website.
An article on the project was published in Dziennika Wschodniego , a local newspaper.
Paulina Zarębska-Denysiuk, PhD, project coordinator, art historian, social animator, teacher. She works as an art history teacher at the C.K. Norwid Visual Arts School Complex in Lublin, runs the Visual Arts Circle. Since 2008 active in the Board of the Lublin Association for the Encouragement of Fine Arts. Member of the Spatial Culture Forum and Spatial Culture Council.
