At the heart of each chapter is a story of family, love or career. He was born in California. Ziemilski said about himself:
My parents returned to Poland when I was three-months old. For years I was told that I was partly an American – I was left with the feeling that I was in fact ‘from somewhere else’ When I was six years old I went to school in the US for a while. All that remains today is that I vote in the US Presidential elections as a representative of all those who are not Americans, but whose lives are hugely affected by US policy.
Wojtek Ziemilski is a polyglot, ‘because that’s how it worked out’. He is a graduate of philosophy. He received a master’s degree in philosophy in Grenoble. Ziemilski also studied applied linguistics at the University of Warsaw and directing at the Portuguese Gulbenkian Foundation. For a long time he lived in Lisbon, where he prepared a multimedia performance entitled Hamlet Light. In Poland, the artist collaborated with the TR Warszawa Theatre – he is the creator of the video installation Actors. He conducts workshops on new experimental forms in the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute.
During his studies in Grenoble Ziemilski got seriously involved in theatre.
I received an invitation from TR Warszawa to create a video studio with them. I returned to Poland – it was three years ago – and worked in the TR for about a year. Then came the crisis, the project was cancelled, and since then I have been doing my own thing. I live in Warsaw, I also work mainly in Warsaw, but I will soon have my debut in Poznań, and straight afterwards I am doing a show in Moldova. I make a living from directing, I sometimes conduct workshops – mainly in Poland, but also in Portugal. At the moment my art allows me to provide for myself. A few years ago, I had a second job as a translator.
Ziemilski is the author of the blog new-art.blogspot.com dedicated to modern art. He declared:
I have very leftist views in life, so I take it out in the virtual space
He published photo feuilletons on Political Critique’s website every day for over a year – reaching two hundred eighty nine publications. Images taken with a mobile phone show a window shop with two signboards: NATIONAL FLAGS and next to it PROMOTION. He photographed ‘Invitation to the TELESHOPPING Anniversary’ and a handwritten note squeezed between a bunch of potatoes saying ‘ugly but good’. He immortalised the notice board announcing that SWEETS ARE WEIGHED IN THE TRADITION SECTION. What stands out, however, is: Section 2 GROWING RESOURCE FORMATION.
Wojtek Ziemilski won fame through the show Small Narration about his grandfather, Wojciech Dzieduszycki (Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Studio Theatre in Warsaw, premiered on 20th March, 2010). The artist sits on the stage and reads, while the screen displays pictures and text.
Wojciech Dzieduszycki (1912-2008) ‘Tunio’, as they called him in Wrocław, came from a family, which used the coat of arms Sas and received the title of Count in 1775. He was born in Yezupil near Stanislaviv. Dzieduszycki made his debut as a tenor in the opera in Stanislaviv, then appeared in Lviv, Florence and Milan. During the war he was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, and later to a concentration camp in Groß-Rosen.
In 1945 Dzieduszycki settled in Wrocław, where he ran mills. In 1952 he founded the cabaret Cigarette Smoke with his wife Halina. He wrote reviews and essays, appeared on television and in films. He co-organised the Chopin festivals in Duszniki-Zdrój. In 2006 historians from the Institute of National Remembrance in Rzeszów revealed his cooperation with the Security Service. It is certain that before he took it up, he was himself spied on; denunciations against him have been preserved. Dzieduszycki’s collaboration with the Security Service lasted for twenty three years. By 1973, he had written more than four hundred reports.
After his past was revealed Dzieduszycki apologised on TV to everyone who could have been harmed by his activities. He withdrew from public life and resigned from the title of Honorary Citizen of Wrocław granted to him in 1999.
The problem in Small Narration is psychologically and practically complex, but artistically – very simple – reveals Wojciech Ziemilski. – The idea was to create theatre. To reach the sublime, and thus material transformation. It was not about recovering from trauma – the immediate trauma was already gone. And the indirect one will exist regardless of everything. I asked myself if I could do something that would go beyond my own experience, which would not be a story about my terrible discovery, or how hard it was for me. At that point the reworking of trauma would better be done with the help of friends or a psychologist. In art, especially on stage, this usually leads to embarrassing results. At the same time, the stage could be used to go beyond expressing one’s own feelings.
In Small Narration the screen behind the back of the artist displayed ironic comments and excerpts from On Certainty, the last work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, such as:
Whether I know something depends on whether the evidence backs me up or contradicts me. For to say one knows one has a pain means nothing.