Emigration – Polish speciality, an ever-present phenomenon in the history of Poland, starting from the Great Emigration, through economic emigration and compulsive emigration (as in 1968) to emigration of choice, motivated by the wish to improve one’s quality of life and development opportunities. According to UN statistics, Poland is one of top three European countries in terms of the number of people living outside the country in which they were born.
Exile, escape, displacement, curiosity of the world – each of these cases means an individual human fate or personal history. What mark has emigration left on the individual life stories? Have they lost or gained more? What have they contributed to the society and culture of the country where they settled? What loss has been suffered by the country which they left?
We invite you to meetings with emigrants who live on the border of different cultures of their own choice or out of historical necessity.
The autumn edition of the Festival of World Cultures “Window onto the World offers a variety of events. The common theme of the debates, exhibitions, meetings with authors, workshops, films and lectures will be migration, with particular emphasis on the experiences of Poles and Jews in the Nordic countries. The events will be held in the historic interiors of the Old Town Hall and St. John's Centre, and also in the modern Patio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.
PROGRAMME:
EXHIBITIONS:
I’m in Denmark. Immigrants in photographs by Piotr Topperzer
BSCC Gallery, 4–31 October 2019
Danish design. Photographs of design icons by Piotr Topperzer
Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansńk, Patio, 5–31 October 2019
Bread and kanelbulle. Portraits of Polish immigrants in Sweden
St. John's Centre, 8–24 October 2019
FRIDAY – 04/10/2019
BSCC – Old Town Hall
18:00-19:30 “Expat life and work” – discussion
Bogusława Sochańska, Włodzimierz Herman, Piotr Topperzer and Maciej Zaremba-Bielawski talk to Marta Perchuć-Burzyńska
19:30 Screening of “Statek” (1970) dir. Marian Marzyński
20:30 Exhibition preview: “I’m in Denmark. Immigrants in photographs by Piotr Topperzer
SATURDAY – 05/10/2019
BSCC – Old Town Hall
14:00-15:15 Meeting with Piotr Mikołajczak, author of the book „Only wind remains. Fjords of Western Iceland”. Host: Aleksandra Kozłowska
15:30-16:45 Story of the life of Poles in Sweden: Krystyna Romanowska and Tomasz Drapella. Host: Maja Chacińska
17:00-18:30 Meeting with Maciej Zaremba-Bielawski author of the book „The house with two towers”. Host: Aleksandra Kozłowska
18:30-20:00 Story of expatriate life, Danish emigration and Janina Katz: Bogusława Sochańska and Włodzimierz Herman
20:00 Screening of “Kredens” (2007) dir. Jacob Dammas
SUNDAY – 06/10/2019
Academy of Fine Arts, Patio
18:00-19:00 Piotr Topperzer and Włodzimierz Herman talk to Bogusława Sochańska about expatriates’ creative work
19:00 “Danish design” – exhibition preview Design icons – photographs by Piotr Topperzer”
MONDAY – 07/10/2019
St. John's Centre,
18:00 Screening of “Keep Frozen” (2016) dir. Hulda Ros Gudnadottir and Karolina Bogusławska
20:00 Post-screening discussion: Karolina Bogusławska and Piotr Mikołajczak. Host: Sebastian Jakub Konefał
TUESDAY – 08/10/2019
St. John's Centre,
18:00 Screening of “Isoland” (2017) dir. Kuba Witek
20:00Post-screening discussion: Sebastian Jakub Konefał and Magdalena Kalisz
ACCOMPANYING EVENTS 04–05/10/2019
Reportage and design book fair
Nordic design fair
GUESTS:
Maja Chacińska
Doctor of Humanities in the field of political science, lecturer at the Department of Scandinavian Studies of the University of Gdańsk. Her teaching and research work focuses on the broadly defined media in the Nordic countries. She gives lectures on the history and analysis of the media and social communication. Author of a book about the media in Nordic countries.
Tomasz Drapella
A 40-year-old born in Gdańsk, qualified civil engineer. For 13 years he has lived and worked in Sweden, where he also brought his family 11 years ago. Happy husband and father. Construction project consultant and coordinator. Keen sailor, skier and triathlete. His hobbies also include orienteering and photography.
Włodzimierz Herman
Director and artistic director of “Kalambur” Student Theatre (1962–1968); director in the Polish Theatre in Wrocław. In 1970, in connection with the wave of political anti-Semitism in Poland, he emigrated and eventually settled in Denmark where after a period of directing work in Zurich, he was responsible for more than one hundred productions on experimental stages in experimental and major theatres. He carried out his art projects in the Royal Theater in Copenhagen. He produced radio dramas for the Danish Radio Theatre, based on The Shoemakers by Witkacy and one-act plays by Mrożek. He directed productions in New York, Moscow, Budapest and Sweden.
Magdalena Kalisz
Graduate in law and American culture studies. She spent eight years abroad, travelling and working – mainly in the tourism industry. She has travelled across five continents and visited over 60 countries. In 2005–2006 she lived in Húsavík in northern Iceland, working e.g. as a whale watching guide.
Having returned to Poland several years ago, she is one of the authors of a series of alternative and subjective guidebooks “Get Your Head Around the City”. She closely follows new trends and developments in Polish cities, photographs and describes them. Now living in Gdańsk, she is participating in setting up a new creative place – The Art of Choice – a café combined with a bookstore, art gallery and Polish design shop. She creates events to promote culture, art, literature and design. She organises meetings with readers, exhibitions, creative workshops and fairs (including the Gdańsk Book Fair).
Sebastian Jakub Konefał
Employee of the Department of Film and Audiovisual Culture Studies at the University of Gdańsk. Foundation for the Development of the Education System grant holder. Curator of several Icelandic cinema reviews in Poland. Author of books: Corpus futuri. Literackie i filmowe wizerunki postludzi, Kino Islandii: Tradycja i ponowoczesność and Cinema of Iceland: Between Tradition and Liquid Modernity. Co-author of entries in encyclopaedias and dictionaries:Światowa Encyklopedia Filmu Religijnego, Kino Nowej Przygody and World Film Locations: Reykjavik. Scientific editor of a monograph Anatomia wyobraźni, Powieści graficzne. Leksykon and co-editor of an anthology Sacrum w kinie. Dekadę później. He likes dogs, comic books and computer games.
Aleksandra Kozłowska
For more than ten years worked as a journalist and editor of Gazeta Wyborcza. Freelancer for two years now, she contributes articles to Polityka, Przekrój and Tygodnik Powszechny, also cooperates with the Museum of Sopot and the Emigration Museum in Gdynia. Holder of a scholarship awarded by the City of Gdańsk. She is currently working with Mirella Wąsiewicz on a book about Poles in Iceland. During the Festival she will host the meetings with Maciej Zaremba-Bielawski and Piotr Mikołajczak.
Piotr Mikołajczak
Born in 1983, co-founder (with Berenika Lenard), of Icestory.pl website and co-author of the reportage Szepty kamieni. Historie z opuszczonej Islandii. He contributed articles to the magazines Angora, Kontynenty and to Polish and Icelandic Web portals. Since 2019 the owner of IceStory – a company offering off-the-beaten-track tours of Northern Europe. He moved from Norway to Iceland, settling in Reykjavik.
Bogusława Sochańska
Polish translator and essayist born in 1955. Graduated in Danish Philology from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Director of the Danish Cultural Institute in Warsaw (since 1999), former cultural attaché at the Polish Embassy in Copenhagen and lecturer at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Translator of books by Hans Christian Andersen (first to translate all the Fairy Tales and Stories from Danish), Stig Dalager, Piet Hein, Janina Katz, Knud Romer, Susanne Brøgger, Yahyi Hassan and Inger Christensen. Winner of the Gdynia Literary Prize in 2019.
Piotr Topperzer
Born in 1948 in Wrocław, resident in Denmark since 1969. In Poland he studied foreign languages, and in Denmark graduated from a school of photography. His photographs show the members of Danish creative and artistic circles and the Danish design.
Maciej Zaremba-Bielawski
Journalist and writer. In 1969, following the anti-Semitic campaign of the communist government, he emigrated to Sweden together with his mother and two younger brothers. Initially he worked as a builder, crane operator and hospital attendant. He studied film history and in 1988 completed his degree in History of Ideas at Stockholm University. He started his journalist career in 1981 when, under the pen name Maciej Zaremba, he wrote reports about Solidarity and the political situation in Poland, published by e.g. the Swedish newspapers “Dagens Nyheter” and “Expressen”. Winner of multiple awards for his journalistic and literary output, including the Swedish Academy Award, the Swedish Grand Prize for Journalism and Ryszard Kapuściński Prize for the literary reportage The house with two towers.
ARTNERS:
Danish Culture Institute
Swedish Embassy in Poland
Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk
