Gaude Mater Polonia / The concert of wishes

The performance entitled Gaude Mater Polonia! The concert of wishes was based on found-footage video and included live action. In the video-work, I put together fragments of archival Polish film chronicles, disco polo songs and speeches by politicians delivered on the occasion of Women's Day. The video-work showed a kind of retrospective from the times of communism to the present day from a paranoid perspective, in which praises for women met with insults, as in the case of a Polish MP offending women fighting for their reproductive rights or the Nazis insulting and intimidating women who stood on the way in protest against fascism as they marched. To the rhythm of changing video images, I gave pink wine and chocolates to the audience. I also used a white and a red rose (the colours of Polish flag) and a funeral ribbon with the inscription 'Gaude Mater Polonia', which in the context of my gestures served as a football fan's scarf, a priest’s stole, a sash used to decorate the winner in a beauty contest or during state ceremonies.

Courtesy of the Dom Mody Limanka

The event by the Frakcja Group entitled "Just One day" took place at the Dom Mody Limanka (Limanka Fashion House) - a venue run by a group of young artists and fashion designers. This place serves as a gallery, studio and apartment at the same time. The title Just one day was an ironic commentary to accompany Women's Day celebrated on the 8th of March. This holiday has an ambiguous overtone. On the one hand, it becomes an opportunity to remind people about the achievements of women, and also about the problems they struggle against. On the other hand, Women's day is used by hypocrites, who then give false respect to women, but in fact they are against women's rights. As members of the Frakcja group of artists, we treated this "just one day" as a special time, a time of freedom and opportunity to show unrestricted artistic expression, experiments with various media and the possibility of performing artistic activities that we had not done before. We described the event as "performative collage." The performative collage Just one day was preceded by an eleven-day action on social media, during which every member of the Frakcja group for one day announced the event at Dom Mody Limanka with a short video-work.

video-frames from the film posted on facebook: Anka Leśniak Just One Day