Filip Lech: How has the pandemic affected your work? Have you been able to create things during this period?
Maniucha Bikont: On the one hand, the pandemic has taken work away from me. Day after day, something else is getting called off: concerts, performances, rehearsals, all my scheduled journeys. Also taken away were my children's nursery, their grandmothers and our network of friends with children. I've become a full-time mother of two small children, which means work is impossible anyway. On the other hand, I quickly understood that I wouldn't be able to get through this period without creative work.
Marcin Wicha: My day job is writing and designing. I mostly do this at home or at least nearby, so at first not much changed for me. But shutting yourself in, worrying about your family, feeling helpless, just waiting around – all of that has been quite overwhelming.
Maniucha Bikont, photo: Agata Maziarz MB: Just like in our song about Sad Maniuszka, the pandemic has released within me an ocean of sadness, a feeling of loss, helplessness, sorrow, anger, longing. The worst thing wasn't the fear of getting sick, but the dominating solitude, even though I was isolating with my family, who I adore. It's hard not to feel guilty. Thanks to conversations with friends and psychological help, I learnt how to carve out some time for work, which turned out to be my protection, my haven, my ‘cress’.
MW: That was when Maniucha wrote to me and proposed I write lyrics. It was a fantastic event. I think it's a privilege to be able to work with her. In the lyrics, I tried to describe the emotions of these strange times. And then I could see – or rather hear – how these paper lyrics are turned into a recording, into a song, into something real. I don't know how to compare it. It's a bit like something has grown out of a seed. Something alive from something dead. Just like that cress in the song.
