"Jewish farm" in Warsaw,
photo: Museum of the History of Polish Jews
The latest work by Israeli artist Yael Bartana (b. 1970 in Afula), entitled Wall and Tower, is a development of her earlier film Nightmares from 2007. In that project, a film shot in Warsaw, a young leftist activist (played by Sławomir Sierakowski, editor-in-chief of "Krytyka Polityczna") spoke to the empty Dziesięciolecia Stadium, encouraging 3 million Jews to return to Poland: "Today we look with boredom at our faces so like one another. In the streets of big cities we seek out strangers and listen intently to their speech. Yes, today we know we cannot live alone. We need others, and there are no others dearer to us than you! Come back!"
The prophecy of a great return of Central European Jews will be fulfilled in Bartana's current project. The action of Wall and Tower takes place on the construction site of the "first kibbutz in Europe", the place where the building of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews will stand - the square in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes. The artist presents a hypothetical script in which Jewish settlers come to live on Polish soil, under procedures applied in the 1930s. Bartana refers to the Homa U'Migdal (wall and tower) method used by Jewish settlers during the Arab revolt of 1936-1939, during the British Mandate in Palestine. Despite a ban on annexing further territories, 52 new settlements were formed at the time. They were usually built overnight, since the binding Ottoman law forbade the destruction of buildings already standing. These hastily constructed kibbutzim had just the basic elements - a fence and a tower; housing and utility buildings were added later on. Bartana makes a direct reference to the "wall and tower" tactic, imitating the form and layout of the kibbutzim built in those days.
The artist fantasizes about a vigorous new movement consolidating the Jews' desire to return to the land of their ancestors - the Movement for Jewish Rebirth in Poland. Its distinct logo, a white eagle on a Star of David, appears on all the printed materials accompanying the Wall and Tower project. Bartana recalls the Zionist dream, invoking heroic images of strong, beautiful men and women who build houses and till the land in the most difficult conditions, study, collectively bring up their children, share their wealth, and also repulse enemy attacks. Bartana moves within an ambiguous area marked by the spectres of nationalism and military determination, touching upon the memory of anti-Semitism and extermination which accompanied the history of settlement. The project also recalls pre-war experimental kibbutzim in Poland where architectural and agricultural solutions were tested before ultimate settlement in Palestine - one such "Jewish farm" was located in Warsaw's Grochów neighbourhood in the 1930s.
A kibbutz in the middle of Warsaw is by its nature an alien structure, unassimilated, though closely linked to the history of the site which was part of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-1943). The artist wants to test the reactions to the unexpected return of a "long unseen neighbour". She also invokes the now largely forgotten story of how the Zionists considered alternative places for the Jewish state, for example Uganda in Africa.
The film made in the Warsaw kibbutz will be shown in the second half of the year, for instance at the Congress of Polish Culture in Kraków, while the kibbutz itself will be used on 25 June as the setting of a promotional and educational event outlining the historical and artistic connotations of Yael Bartana's project. Words of introduction will be spoken by Jerzy Halbersztadt (director of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews) and Sebastian Cichocki (chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw). Yael Bartana will talk about her Warsaw projects and earlier works. There will also be a screening of excerpts from 1930s newsreels about Jewish settlers and the artist's previous film, Nightmares.
The square in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes
Warsaw
Press release