The first meeting of a group of young people from Sejny and Suwałki who have been working together for two years as part of the Sejny Lektorium program took place on Monday, January 29.
At 10:30 we connected with Weronika Poncyljusz-Czyżewska, who talked about the Changing Democracies project, carried out together with the Evens Foundation. This project aims to create a picture of the democracy transformation in European that is as complete and diverse as possible. Many organizations from all over Europe cooperate on the project. As part of this project, the Borderland Foundation recorded a series of interviews with people from our region who shared their memories and perspectives on that time. At the end of this morning meeting we watched fragments of one of such stories together.
The next part of the meeting, led by Piotr Myszczyński, concerned the book by Olga Drenda - “Duchologia polska. Rzeczy i ludzie w latach transformacji”. This book presents an interesting perspective that allows, through contact with objects, films and advertisements from that period, to get closer to the history of political changes in Poland. We watched fragments of the Polish Film Chronicle, election spots and the first news footages, we also read stories of various people affected by the changes that took place in Poland at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s.
Then Agata Wasilewska presented the film "Symfonia Fabryki Ursus" directed by Jaśmina Wójcik. It tells the story of former employees of the titular factory, who, after its closure, still have strong ties to this place. Thanks to the work of the director, who is also a social educator and visual artist, they manage to bring life back to the factory walls, even if only for a moment. After the film, there was a discussion during which we shared our views on the perspective presented.
Piotr Szroeder told us the story of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio. This institution was established in 1957 and was intended to perform primarily research functions. However, it quickly became one of the most important places for the development of Polish electronic music, as well as a place of artistic freedom and independence on a scale unprecedented in the communist period. Studio has become a place of creative work for artists and composers such as: Paweł Szymański, Krzysztof Penderecki and Bogusław Schaeffer. However, Eugeniusz Rudnik comes to the fore in this story - initially playing the role of a studio technician, he later became one of the most important figures, a pioneer of polish electronic music. We listened to some of his compositions together. We also watched the film "Spacer Staromiejski" directed by Andrzej Munk, which was inspired by the SEPR and was entirely sound-produced in this studio.
At the end of this long day, Staszek Czyżewski recalled a slightly forgotten history and talked about the "I Przegląd Piosenki Prawdziwej", which took place in Gdynia in 1981. All the most important Polish opposition artists appeared on one stage. Together we watched film materials from this event: we listened to songs by Jacek Zwoźniak, Maciej Zembaty and Jan Stanisławski, as well as a satirical monologue by Jacek Fedorowicz.
Photography: Agata Wasilewska
