Little views in a box

DESCRIPTION OF THE PERFORMANCE:

All stories, which do not fit in the big history, are like small crumbs hidden in separate boxes, each of them separately. Deciphering the space, which hides plenty of mini-boxes, locked self-sufficient communities. They are like arguments hidden under the ground, as if nothing has happened, they are waiting dormant until someone comes across them. When I dig in the soil with my fingers, I will make a breach - stories from the boxes will connect like underground sewers, invisible arteries in the fabric of the city, in the space, in the body.

People have always been telling stories. In the times of the plague, in trenches, in hideouts, in the cottage cut off from the world during a harsh winter. They are being told to dispel fears, cry through difficulties, ridicule the incurable, experience unimaginable. The performance needs presence, shared experience. Stories need listeners, however, work with memory is very solitary in its roots. Today, when reality, in which we are both individually and together, when human life have moved to intangible, non-physical Web space, maybe this is the moment to go back to those roots and examine them. Loud words uttered in remote areas, behind a soundproof glass, at most can be seen, one can only guess their meaning. I do not want to pretend that I am talking to someone who is theoretically close, that we are present, when each of us is actually locked in their solitude. Instead, I want to see what it really means when you are left alone with a story, and what can happen at the moment of this little breach - a strange meeting between boxes, a short connection on the line, or in the Web space.

"Little Views in a Box” is a performance without audience, based on the work with body and story, accompanied by a movie ”Little Views: Memory of the City/Memory of the Body” documenting performance in the city space. Since 2011 Patrycja Dołowy buries small pictures, little views, in selected urban spaces. This is an allusion to her childhood play of hiding “little views” or “secrets”, although nowadays the artist does it in a different way. In her performative activities, she makes plaster casts of her own body parts, covers them with photographic emulsion, and then uses an enlarger to print fragments of photographs on the casts - like pieces of history - which she finally buries in the ground. Each of the views is accompanied by snippets of secret stories - the unspoken ones, functioning only within four walls (or not even there). This performance is an artistic attempt to provide a different perspective on space, time and memory. Unlike monumental bronze statues, little views tell many tiny stories.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE ARTIST: 

Patrycja Dołowy - a multimediaartist, writer and activist. She has been dealing with the issue of identity and memory for years. Her work is based on oral history and testimonies. She has got a PhD in natural sciences (2007) and she is a graduate of the University of Warsaw (2002) and the Academy of Art Photography in Wrocław (2005). She has more than 60 exhibitions to her name, both in Poland and abroad. Her work and texts are published in various artistic and cultural magazines. She is the author of the blog "Widoczki: Pamięć miasta / Pamięć ciała" ("Little Views: Memory of a City / Memory of the Body") and theatre plays including ”Hideout / Kryjówka”, ”Matki / Mothers”, ”Hindełe, siostra Sztukmistrza / Hindełe, sister of the Magician”; and co-author of books. Three-time scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Scholarship holder of Asylum Arts in New York. Winner of awards, including the Karol Sabath Award and an honourable mention in the Small Theatre Forms Festival “Kontrapunkt”. Last year her book entitled ”Wrócę gdy będziesz spała. Rozmowy z dziećmi Holocaustu" ("I'll be back when you are asleep. Conversations with children of the Holocaust”), was published by Czarne, 2019.

LINKS:

• https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kultura/sztuki-wizualne/widoczki-patrycja-dolowy/