Marta

Previously I used writing assemble and edit found material, for example family archives. I made a book in collaboration with my grandmother that consists of her letters (accounts from her exile during the second World War). The book still needs to be redefined and designed in order to find a visually relevant form for the content. A large part of work was typing original letters on computer. Translation of writing from the original materials – just by reiterating one version of another is an act of translation. Apart from text there’s little visual materials: a map, three portraits of my great grandfather, a painting (made by myself on the basis of the descriptions of landscapes) and images of original letters.

Currently I am collecting notes, stories, observation, dreams that is in parallel to making spontaneous footage: hoping that might one day serve as a basis for future scripts. It is mostly linked to topics like dislocation, transition, moving in and out, acts of orientation – that is why I chose the harbor to metaphorically encompass the stories. I want to include those little pieces of writing in my art practice. I want to use sound, narrative and image and make assemblages comprising those three. I am interested in the structure of narrative itself, interplay between documentary and narrative. (One of the key literary references would be W.G. Sebald, who is a master in playing between the fictional and the documentary.) I am interested in history and memory – how the subjective, the emotional and historical can be translated into something the viewer can relate to.

I hated writing, didn’t feel it was my tool and still don’t. I would like to find my own way of writing (not academic, not poetry, not conceptual but something in between). My current ambition is to be more courageous, to take it slowly and also differentiate between description and naming (trying better to go beyond describing). I want to make a semi-fictional book and the writing event will be good moment to reveal the content. It is based on my experience, on a journey I undertook in order to meet an artist Paweł Kruk (with an immaterial practice – he re-enacts others artists works, aims to be as little original as possible, travels a lot, traces others artists paths, evokes their ghosts by quasi spiritual rituals, conceives shows consisting of others people works without them knowing ecc). I arranged to meet him in Poznań I got a train but the train was 5 hours late, and he had to leave to Warsaw, I talked to the staff of the train I was in (Szczecin-Poznań) and convinced the staff to call Poznań and delay the train Poznań-Warsaw. So I met the artist on the train and we had 3 hours. Mishups continued and I wanted to record it but the recorder broke. I made notes and made text (which has the form of an interview) which is more of a written dialogue and serves as a base for the book. The book will have visual elements and a materiality of its own. It will be in bi-lingual and I would like to acknowledge the act of translation in the book.