The Frakcja Diary

The Frakcja Diary. The Women who stay at home is a project carried out by the Frakcja group in the Frakcja Facebook fan page for 66 days (entries from 18th of March to 25th of May 2020). Every day one artist posted her work, documentation or a photo with a comment on the pandemic, socio-political and/or personal situation. As part of the diary, I made a few video-works including the following:

L'ART DE LA CORRESPONDANCE
Correspondence art / Mail art

The Frakcja Diary / day 25

The work was a protest against the forcible keeping of the citizens of Poland in home detention because of spreading the coronavirus, but at the same time pushing us to taking part in the so-called‘postal presidential election' planned on 10th of May 2020, in which only one candidate had a chance to win.

post-scriptum
Finally the elections did not take place in May, nevertheless an enormous number of ballot papers had been printed that had been never used. This waste and arrogance consequently raises economical and ecological questions.

THE SOCIAL DISTANCE / DAY 36

presented at the Lacuna Festivals 2021

The Frakcja Diary / day 36

The video-recording of 30 subsequent days of lockdown in March and April 2020. The video is based on observation of the same beach entrance intertwined with quotations from news on the pandemic and the situation in the country.

THE SPELL WITH A MIRROR

The Frakcja Diary / day 42

The words spoken in the video are a paraphrase of the quotation from the movie entitled Spoor by Agnieszka Holland. The film was based on the novel by Olga Tokarczuk Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead. The video is also about how the impossible and unimaginable becomes a fact. It is also a reference to female powers that will eventually change the world, even if it still seems unimaginable to many people.

THE REBELLIOUS CELLS

The Frakcja Diary / day 55

The Coronavirus complicated the process of treating patients who suffer from other diseases, and the narrative about this virus has ousted their problems from the awareness of the 'healthy' public opinion. I felt sorry for these people, but I was also relieved that I am not in their place, that I do not have to choose between a risky stay in a hospital during the pandemic or a risky delay of a necessary treatment. I would not expect to find myself in this group …

Whenever I could, I avoided public health care in Poland, not because of a lack of trust in doctors, but because the whole system was sick and none of the governments in 1989 had courage to reform it. How can you be treated when you are ill, when all the whole health care system is ill? Why should we, the patients, bear the consequences of the neglect by cowardly and/or populist politicians?

Why was none of them brave enough to say that the treatment costs too much, that early diagnoses cost too much? Waiting for months or years for the 'free medical examination' means that many diseases are detected too late.

My video-performance The Rebellious Cells is in English, because it's not as personal for me as my native language and allows me for a kind distance from the reality I faced.