Umeå Volcano public project computer renderings video documentation of public meeting and interviews with inhabitants of the town of Umeå 2006, Verkligheten Gallery, Umeå, Sweden

Polish (woman) with the right to revolt

In Poland she is famous for having placed a 15 meter high palmtree in the middle of Warsaw. Now she is in Umeå for three months to make “public art". But forget about statues, sculptures and paintings in frames on the inside walls of municipal buildings.

Joanna Rajkowska's definition of public art is of another kind. For her it is about reclaiming the city, about making the people living in a city feel that it is their city, that they should take control over it and make it open, alive and democratic.

“Art itself or the action of art, is not the most important thing. Art is just a means, a way of initiating social activity. And of course, in the end it's about politics", she says.

Tonight she will be at Verkligheten to meet the people living in Umeå - artist collegues and others - in order to learn more about Umeå and get to know the people. She will show a presentation of the palmtree that was raised on Jerusalem Avenue in Warsaw in 2002 and that, despite resistance from the Polish establishment, still is standing.

The story of the Polish palmtree started when Joanna visited Israel in 2001. She met a divided society, two parallell worlds without connections. On the one side palestinian refugee camps, on the other side Western urbanity. With violence, or the threat of violence, as a daily ingredient:

“No one reacts any longer when army helicopters sweep over the roofs of Bethlehem. It's just a part of everyday life."

Or “normality". At home in Poland a type of normality rules that manifests itself in nationalism, fear of homosexuals and xenophobia. It hasn't always been that way. Once upon a time the Jewish population was an important feature in Polish cultural life. Most of this is now gone but there are remains left. For example the street Jerusalem Avenue that goes through the old Jewish quarters.

It is there that Joanna has placed her palmtree, produced in San Diego, California. She gave it the name “Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue". This palmtree right in the middle of Warsaw, this unthinkable meeting between two worlds and climate zones, this foreign body in the middle of Warsaw's street life, has caused controversy. But it is still standing.

“In Poland we have an expression where “palm" is something beyond reason, something idiotic. Here it also gets a slip of meaning, that our old “normal" way of thinking might not work any more."

While in Umeå, Joanna promises to arrange a Rebellion Night. It's going to take place inside Verkligheten (“Reality" in Swedish) and not outside in reality. Joanna will show videofilms from England and Poland that focus on activism and rebellion - and repression. This will be illustrated for example in her own film about how the authorities and the police this year shut down the Warsaw-club Le Madame - a watering hole for “the other" Poland.

“ Poland of today is a terrible society. There is no openness to multiculturalism, no tolerance for sexual deviation. It's the “black powers" that are in control with the catholic church and those reactionary twin brothers at the lead".

By “those twin brothers" she means the country's President and prime minister, Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

The fear that was there during the communist era still exists, she says, it has just changed direction. Now it's not “the other" as political freethinkers but the sexually deviant and immigrants. And in the role as the manipulator of fear, the church has taken over after the communist party.

Joanna has been in Umeå for a week and the thing that strikes her here is the peace and quiet.

“It feels like Umeå has always existed and will exist for ever".

But with her Polish eyes she looks on the idyll with some scepticism and concern. She says that she thinking about sending up a balloon over Umeå. It should contain a warning to the citizens, a text that urges the people of Umeå to be on their guard, to not take things for granted.

“Before you know it you're standing there and realising that your most fundamental rights are being threatened. That what we took to be civilization, in the sense of decency and openness, is about to disappear".

Anders Sjogren

(Vasterbottens-Kuriren, Sept. 12th, 2006)

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