Organization
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FestivALT Association
An outdoor event presenting creative and participatory practices of transmitting the memory of places of difficult heritage in green space.
KL Plaszow’s layers of history, the indistinct boundaries of the land, the multitude of claimants to its memory and its current role as a parks and recreations space, make it a prime example of what the International Council of Museums (ICOM) calls a contested site.
The conflicting perspectives on the nature of the site and its history represent an opportunity for meaningful conversation, education, and growth; by engaging groups with a multitude of perspectives through a process of interpreting a site and mutually planning for its future.
Since its founding in 2017 one of FestivALT’s core missions is to offer a neutral platform for people of good faith to discuss these differences. In fulfilling this mandate we have initiated a number of innovative projects and best practices aimed at raising awareness about the site’s complicated history as well as creating a space for dialogue among diverse stakeholders.
That is why we are proud to co-organize "Green Commemorations: Action through Art", a two day outdoor event promoting alternative and artistic strategies for the transmission of memory in green spaces. We are invigorated to demonstrate a practice-based culture of remembrance that harnesses innovative strategies of cooperation and a multidisciplinary approach to heritage and community building; seamlessly integrating Civic Arts, Activism and Urbanism.
The program is implemented as part of the NeDiPa: Negotiating Difficult Pasts project, which we implement together with the Zapomniane Foundation and the Urban Memory Foundation, thanks to the support of the European Union under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) program.
The program is implemented as part of the NeDiPa: Negotiating Difficult Pasts project, which we implement together with the Zapomniane Foundation and the Urban Memory Foundation, thanks to the support of the European Union under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) program.
The event was held under the patronage of the Representation of the European Commission in Poland
The program is implemented as part of the NeDiPa: Negotiating Difficult Pasts project, which we implement together with the Zapomniane Foundation and the Urban Memory Foundation, thanks to the support of the European Union under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) program.
The expectations of the residents will be collected as part of the Places of Remembrance and Forgetting project, implemented from the Norwegian Funds from the grant of the Active Citizens - National Fund program financed from the EEA Funds.
On Friday, October 14, we invite you to a Green Shabbat to open our Green Commemoration weekend.
We will be filtering this particular Green Shabbat through the notion of Shamor veZachor, or in English, To Remember and to Preserve.
Each Shabbat, we light two candles; one to “remember” and one to “preserve”, and utter the words “Shamor ve Zachor beDibbur ehad, meaning “To Remember and Preserve Shabbat in one utterance”.
As we welcome this Green Shabbat and our weekend of Green Commemoration, we will consider how the notion of “Shamor ve Zachor/To Remember and Preserve” applies to sites of traumatic histories, particularly those located in green areas. What does it mean to "Remember and Preserve" when considering these sites? How should we negotiate the intersection of memory with the environment? What, if anything, should be prioritized/compromised on.
During our Green Shabbat, we will welcome Shabbat, and share a delicious vegetarian, vegan and environmentally friendly meal. Artists and thinkers for the weekend will be present as well as special guests.
Please join us for what will surely be another wonderful FestivALT Shabbat. Our Green Shabbat is open to all who want to join, whether you are Jewish or not.
The dinner begins at 7.00 PM. Registration is mandatory, places are limited.
A glass of wine will be included with the meal, though you are invited to also bring something additional for the table.
WHEN: Friday, October 14, at 7.00 PM
WHERE: CentrALT, Jozefinska 9
REGISTRATION: Please email us at info@festivalt.com to indicate your interest. Once approved we will ask you to donate 100 PLN towards the costs of organizing the dinner.
Ethnobotanist, pharmacy technician, biologist. His adventure with medicinal plants began in the pharmaceutical college. He deepened his knowledge while studying at the Jagiellonian University (major: biology and geology, specialization in nature conservation), combining theory with practice - he repeatedly participated in botanical camps and meetings of the botanical section of the naturalists' club, participated in national ethnobotanical conferences. He was one of the key partners in establishing the Płaszów Medicinal Plant Garden at Dąbrówki 7 in Krakow.
Ethnobotanist Karol Szurdak will lead a unique on site discussion of healing herbs and medicinal plants growing on genocidal land. Under his scholarly tutelage the group will learn how to distinguish these specific herbs and medicinal plants, as well as their characteristics and best use. Upon completion of the lecture on site, attendees are encouraged to participate in a workshop during which we will make healing mixtures and infusions of the herbs collected earlier at KL Plaszow. In doing so we will try to find answers to the question of whether ground, marked by genocide, bears medicinal powers, and what are the moral limits of its usage.
Ethnobotanist, pharmacy technician, biologist. His adventure with medicinal plants began in the pharmaceutical college. He deepened his knowledge while studying at the Jagiellonian University (major: biology and geology, specialization in nature conservation), combining theory with practice - he repeatedly participated in botanical camps and meetings of the botanical section of the naturalists' club, participated in national ethnobotanical conferences. He was one of the key partners in establishing the Płaszów Medicinal Plant Garden at Dąbrówki 7 in Krakow.
Ethnobotanist Karol Szurdak will lead a unique on site discussion of healing herbs and medicinal plants growing on genocidal land. Under his scholarly tutelage the group will learn how to distinguish these specific herbs and medicinal plants, as well as their characteristics and best use. Upon completion of the lecture on site, attendees are encouraged to participate in a workshop during which we will make healing mixtures and infusions of the herbs collected earlier at KL Plaszow. In doing so we will try to find answers to the question of whether ground, marked by genocide, bears medicinal powers, and what are the moral limits of its usage.
Choreographer, dancer, performer. A graduate of the Experimental Academy of Contemporary Dance SEAD in Salzburg, the Warsaw University of Technology (Faculty of Production Engineering and the Faculty of Management) and the University of Warsaw (Institute of Polish Culture). Scholarship holder of the following programs: DanceWEB 2013 ImpulsTanz, Carte Blanche 2013 and Alternative Dance Academy 2017 and 2019. As a dancer and performer, she collaborated with artists in Poland, Germany, Austria, France and Croatia. Since 2010, she has been preparing choreography for drama theatres, films, music videos and commercials. Since 2011, he has been running individual and collective artistic projects, e.g. "Europe. Investigation", "it will come later", "The Bullet", "Still Standing", "The Spheres". In 2018-2020, she was associated with the international collective iCoDaCo. Curator of the program Movement at the Institute (2017-19) - regular classes in movement and body awareness for actors, performers and theater people. He also conducts classes at the Theater Academy in Warsaw in the field of Theater Studies. She co-creates Centrum w Ruchu and the sisterhood practice initiative. In choreographic practice, I am interested in building what is common while strengthening what is individual. For her, dance is a channel of social emancipation from gender, historical, cultural and racial stereotypes. She is an advocate of returning to the body as a source of endless inspiration and creativity and rebirth.
Independent dancer, performer, choreographer, creating primarily collectively and interdisciplinary. A graduate of ACTS/École de Danse Contemporaine in Paris and The Place, London Contemporary Dance School. He co-creates the international movement The Yonis, a choreographic initiative of the sisterhood practice and the Body Laboratory at the Krakow Choreographic Center. She is also a member of the band Robert Diabeł. Monika creates her own projects and performances as well as choreographies for films, museums and theater performances (e.g. Teatr Ochoty, Łazienki Królewskie in Warsaw, Juliusz Słowacki Theater in Kraków or the National Museum in Kraków). As a dancer, she has worked with such artists as: Victor Quijada, Richard Siegal, Dan Van Huynh, Elinor Lewis, Weronika Pelczyńska, Kaori Ito, Kasia Witek, Agnieszka Glińska, Rafaela Sahyoun and Stefano Silvino.
PhD, anthropologist, researcher, co-author of the Laboratory of the Museum initiative and "Museums for Climate". Director of Centrum Cyfrowe. She is interested in the social role of cultural institutions and their relations with recipients. She specializes in the analysis and implementation of participatory strategies, audience research and opening access to heritage resources. In his academic work, he studies memory cultures and the role of institutions in the process of institutionalizing discourses on the past. Vice-president of the Zapomniane Foundation, which deals with finding and locating forgotten, uncommemorated graves of Holocaust victims.
We invite you to the outdoor performance show "Still Standing" performed by Monika Szpunar and Weronika Pelczyńska.
It is a performative action in which the body is treated as a carrier of memory and a living sculpture created in relation to the place - in this case, the vicinity of the former KL Płaszów Camp. The action enters into a dialogue with the historical choreography of the Israeli choreographer Noa Eshkol, prepared by her especially for the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and presented in 1953 at the Lohamei Hageta'ot (Ghetto Fighters) kibbutz in Israel.
Using movement, choreography and storytelling, Still Standing poses the question of care as a possible attitude towards what is left of history – a care that directs us not only to the past, but also to the present and the future. Physical action through the performers' bodies in motion also raises questions about how such ephemeral forms can be used as strategies of commemoration, especially in places associated with difficult memory? What can movement extract from a given space and its history?
By placing bodies in a specific space - with all its layers - "Still Standing" experiments with creating images and subjecting them to interpretation by observers. By examining relationships transformed into physical action, he tries to be in constant motion from the past to the present, from what is individual to what is collective.
The choreographic component of the performance will be accompanied by an autonomous audio part (optional). People who want to listen to it during the event are asked to bring their own phones and headphones. If you do not have such a possibility, write to us: info@festivalt.com, we will help.
The action is presented for the third time, as part of the Sukkot holiday, also known as the Feast of Booths. It is a joyous Jewish celebration commemorating the time of dwelling in booths and tents during the Israelites' escape from Egypt. We encourage you to meet us on this day in the open air, among the greenery around the former Płaszów Camp.
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Idea: Aleksandra Janus, Weronika Pelczyńska
Lecture/voice: Aleksandra Janus
Performance: Monika Szpunar, Weronika Pelczyńska
The performance was created in 2020 in cooperation with FestivALT and since then it has been presented in various versions in Warsaw and Lublin. Further work on it was possible thanks to the support and cooperation of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (as part of the Thinking Through the Museum project), as well as the support of the Allianz Kulturstiftung and the Paidea Institute for Jewish Studies.
Project coordinator at the Education for Democracy Foundation, where he coordinates educational projects, conducts training for non-governmental organizations and teachers, and supports the implementation of projects from the PAFF Aid Fund. Thrice a teacher on the cruises of the "Blue School" on the sailing ship "Fryderyk Chopin". Three times elected to the Saska Kępa Residents' Self-Government. Co-founder and president of the district association "Wiatrak". Member of the Audit Committee of the Wikimedia Poland Association. He devotes his free time to sailing, cycling and sightseeing trips.
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The expectations of the residents will be collected as part of the Places of Remembrance and Forgetting project, implemented from the Norwegian Funds from the grant of the Active Citizens - National Fund program financed from the EEA Funds.
It is not easy to return once again to the conversation about the future shape of the former KL Plaszow camp area and the commemoration of the camp, but the voice of the inhabitants is of great importance for the future of this commemoration. After a series of interviews conducted over several months with residents, descendants, representatives of the Jewish community and various institutions, we invite you to talk together about the needs of the neighbors of KL Plaszow in the context of the emerging museum. The conclusions and postulates collected during the meeting will be handed over to the KL Plaszow Memorial Site Museum during the Green Commemorations event. Challenging Legacy Challenges: https://www.facebook.com/events/411728567566664
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(Accompanying event)
The expectations of the residents will be collected as part of the Places of Remembrance and Forgetting project, implemented from the Norwegian Funds from the grant of the Active Citizens - National Fund program financed from the EEA Funds.
We would like to thank the "Kabel" Cooperative for lending us space for the meeting.
Anna Schapiro is a visual artist and writer. Her works have been shown in in Basel, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Łódź, Lublin, New York, Porto, Stuttgart and in Wrocław at MWW. Anna Schapiro's visual works move between sculpture and painting. Contrary to the classic idea of a fixed-form work of art, they are flexible and often adapt to the chosen place like a second skin. A given space is not only the place where the work is realized, but also becomes its active carrier. To learn more, visit: www.annaschapiro.com
Join the conversation and participatory activity, during which we will together mark the historical borders - today unmarked - of two Jewish cemeteries in KL Płaszów. The action will be led by a Jewish artist working with natural earth-based pigments, Anna Schapiro from Berlin.
The action is carried out by the Urban Memory Foundation, the founder, in cooperation with FestivALT as part of the Places of Remembrance and Forgetting project.
We would like to thank the Rabbinic Commission for Cemeteries, the Jewish Religious Community in Krakow, the KL Plaszow Museum, the Municipal Conservator and the Municipal Visual Artist for supporting this action.
The event will be held in Polish and English.
Aleksander Schwarz — longtime expert of the Rabbinical Commission for Cemeteries, specialist in Jewish law in the field of cemeteries and burials, president of the Zapomniane Foundation. It reconstructs the historical borders of cemeteries and their burial zones, searches for uncommemorated burial grounds of Jews from the time of the Holocaust, based on non-invasive methods of research consistent with Halacha.
A student of Professor Karczewski from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow in the field of interpretation of georadar research (data) and associate of Ph.D. Eng. Sebastian Różycki from the Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography of the Warsaw University of Technology in the field of synchronization of archival maps and interpretation of German aerial photos. He gives opinions on the projects of commemorations as well as conservation and archaeological works in the former extermination camps, and supervises their course.
In 2002-2003, he supervised the construction of the Museum - Memorial Site in Bełżec (Branch of the State Museum at Majdanek), and since 2012 he has been a member of Wojciech Mazurek's archaeological team investigating the site of the former Death Camp in Sobibór, in connection with the construction of the commemoration.
For 10 years, he has been regularly conducting workshops on Jewish customs related to burial, addressed to a wide audience: schoolchildren, students, teachers, religious groups and groups of people affected by social exclusion, including prison inmates in Poland.
We invite you for a neighborly walk with dogs, during which Aleksander Schwarz, an expert on Jewish law on burials and cemeteries, will introduce the participants to issues related to the rules of behavior in places where Jewish burials are located.
The walk is designed as a presentation of these principles in practice - we will move around areas where we can, respecting Jewish law, walk dogs, we will also talk about what Jewish law requires of us in places where burials are located.
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Due to the limited number of places and high interest, please do not delay in registering.
Choreographer, dancer, performer. A graduate of the Experimental Academy of Contemporary Dance SEAD in Salzburg, the Warsaw University of Technology (Faculty of Production Engineering and the Faculty of Management) and the University of Warsaw (Institute of Polish Culture). Scholarship holder of the following programs: DanceWEB 2013 ImpulsTanz, Carte Blanche 2013 and Alternative Dance Academy 2017 and 2019. As a dancer and performer, she collaborated with artists in Poland, Germany, Austria, France and Croatia. Since 2010, she has been preparing choreography for drama theatres, films, music videos and commercials. Since 2011, he has been running individual and collective artistic projects, e.g. "Europe. Investigation", "it will come later", "The Bullet", "Still Standing", "The Spheres". In 2018-2020, she was associated with the international collective iCoDaCo. Curator of the program Movement at the Institute (2017-19) - regular classes in movement and body awareness for actors, performers and theater people. He also conducts classes at the Theater Academy in Warsaw in the field of Theater Studies. She co-creates Centrum w Ruchu and the sisterhood practice initiative. In choreographic practice, I am interested in building what is common while strengthening what is individual. For her, dance is a channel of social emancipation from gender, historical, cultural and racial stereotypes. She is an advocate of returning to the body as a source of endless inspiration and creativity and rebirth.
Independent dancer, performer, choreographer, creating primarily collectively and interdisciplinary. A graduate of ACTS/École de Danse Contemporaine in Paris and The Place, London Contemporary Dance School. He co-creates the international movement The Yonis, a choreographic initiative of the sisterhood practice and the Body Laboratory at the Krakow Choreographic Center. She is also a member of the band Robert Diabeł. Monika creates her own projects and performances as well as choreographies for films, museums and theater performances (e.g. Teatr Ochoty, Łazienki Królewskie in Warsaw, Juliusz Słowacki Theater in Kraków or the National Museum in Kraków). As a dancer, she has worked with such artists as: Victor Quijada, Richard Siegal, Dan Van Huynh, Elinor Lewis, Weronika Pelczyńska, Kaori Ito, Kasia Witek, Agnieszka Glińska, Rafaela Sahyoun and Stefano Silvino.
PhD, anthropologist, researcher, co-author of the Laboratory of the Museum initiative and "Museums for Climate". Director of Centrum Cyfrowe. She is interested in the social role of cultural institutions and their relations with recipients. She specializes in the analysis and implementation of participatory strategies, audience research and opening access to heritage resources. In his academic work, he studies memory cultures and the role of institutions in the process of institutionalizing discourses on the past. Vice-president of the Zapomniane Foundation, which deals with finding and locating forgotten, uncommemorated graves of Holocaust victims.
We invite you to the outdoor performance show "Still Standing" performed by Monika Szpunar and Weronika Pelczyńska.
It is a performative action in which the body is treated as a carrier of memory and a living sculpture created in relation to the place - in this case, the vicinity of the former KL Płaszów Camp. The action enters into a dialogue with the historical choreography of the Israeli choreographer Noa Eshkol, prepared by her especially for the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and presented in 1953 at the Lohamei Hageta'ot (Ghetto Fighters) kibbutz in Israel.
Using movement, choreography and storytelling, Still Standing poses the question of care as a possible attitude towards what is left of history – a care that directs us not only to the past, but also to the present and the future. Physical action through the performers' bodies in motion also raises questions about how such ephemeral forms can be used as strategies of commemoration, especially in places associated with difficult memory? What can movement extract from a given space and its history?
By placing bodies in a specific space - with all its layers - "Still Standing" experiments with creating images and subjecting them to interpretation by observers. By examining relationships transformed into physical action, he tries to be in constant motion from the past to the present, from what is individual to what is collective.
The choreographic component of the performance will be accompanied by an autonomous audio part (optional). People who want to listen to it during the event are asked to bring their own phones and headphones. If you do not have such a possibility, write to us: info@festivalt.com, we will help.
The action is presented for the third time, as part of the Sukkot holiday, also known as the Feast of Booths. It is a joyous Jewish celebration commemorating the time of dwelling in booths and tents during the Israelites' escape from Egypt. We encourage you to meet us on this day in the open air, among the greenery around the former Płaszów Camp.
---
Idea: Aleksandra Janus, Weronika Pelczyńska
Lecture/voice: Aleksandra Janus
Performance: Monika Szpunar, Weronika Pelczyńska
The performance was created in 2020 in cooperation with FestivALT and since then it has been presented in various versions in Warsaw and Lublin. Further work on it was possible thanks to the support and cooperation of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (as part of the Thinking Through the Museum project), as well as the support of the Allianz Kulturstiftung and the Paidea Institute for Jewish Studies.
Guided tour around KL Plaszow for international students of the Institute of Intercultural Studies of the Jagiellonian University (closed event)