The Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP) calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to Poland in order to re-establish the annihilated Jewish community. Now with the 1st International Congress opening on Friday the Movement enters a more practical realm. What will it bring?
Can artwork influence political scene? And can film narrative change reality? Yael Bartana, one of the initiators of the Jewish Renaissance Movement, thinks so. Her answer to these questions was her film trilogy and Europe Will Be Stunned, shown at last year's Venice Biennale.
In it Bartana addresses the hypothetical history of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland and its leader Sławomir Sierakowski (in real life a leader of a prominent leftist movement Krytyka Polityczna). The first scene of the film Nightmares ("Mary Koszmary") shows Sierakowski giving an ardent speech on the ruins of the 10th Anniversary Stadium. He calls 3.3 million Polish Jews to return to Poland.
See the film at Museum of Modern Art's Filmoteka website...
The second film of the series Wall and Tower (2009) is a response to this invitation. The Jews arrive in Warsaw and set up a kibbutc in the area of the old Jewish district. They also initiate the Jewish Renaissance Movement.
See the film at MoMa's Filmoteka…
This new incarnation of the old Zionist idea is challenged in the last part of the trilogy called Assasination (2011). Sierakowski is murdered, and the film records the funeral ceremonies after his death.
The 1st International Congress of JRMiP will depart from a letter of late leader of the movement, which was found after his assassination.
The letter contains a sort of credo of the Movement's leader :
- In today’s world, we are still ruled by fear for our safety and by shame about getting involved. Man is still a wolf to his fellow man, since no tale of a better world engages him more than his own private interest. If we want to overcome the globalized ›state of nature‹ in which we live, we should create social ties. Because only the trust that we have for each other will allow us to get involved in building a better world beyond our personal affairs.
The letter includes also a list of proposals for changes in Poland. For the whole letter go here...
As the real Sierakowski explains, "from the very beginnings of our co-operation with Yael Bartana, the film Nightmares, we assumed, the whole thing is serious. That it is not 'art for art's sake'." (Sierakowski in conversation with Artur Żmijewski in: Żmijewski. Przewodnik Krytyki Politycznej)
At the time of the Venice Biennale the JRMiP isued a Manifesto:
- We wish to heal our mutual trauma once and for all. We believe that we are fated to live here, to raise families here, die and bury the remains of our dead here. [...]
With one religion, we cannot listen.
With one color, we cannot see.
With one culture, we cannot feel.
Without you we can't even remember.
(Fragment, See the whole Manifesto here...)
Thus the the activities which seemed doomed to remain in the sphere of political imagination morphed into a concept which would materialise in the public space. The movement which aims to enable the return of Jews into the land of their fathers, lost its metaphorical shield and acquired a very literal dimension. It has even its logo: a blend of Polish eagle and Star of David.
In January during the discussion about the project ...and Europe Will Be Stunne at the Guggenheim, Yael Bartana emphasised that the main goal of the movement was to highlight the willingness to realise things which seem at first impossible.
Artur Żmijewski, the curator of the 7th Art Biennale in Berlin, saw a parallel between his concept of art as a tool of wielding political and social influence (which became the main idea of this years Biennial) and Bartana's project. In 2011, he and Bartana decided that the first meeting of the supporters of the Movement would take place in Berlin.
The first Congress of the JRMiP takes place at HAU1, one of the stages of the Hebbel am Ufer Theatre in Berlin, on May 11-13, 2012.
During the three days of the Congress the participants will address three main questions:
- How Should the EU Change in Order to Welcome the Other?
- How Should Poland Change within a Re-Imagined EU?
- How Should Israel Change to Become Part of the Middle East?
The participants of the Congress will include artists, intellectuals, and social activists from all over the world, linked mainly with the leftist circles. Polish panelists include Michał Zadara, Kinga Dunin, Jaś Kapela. The proceedings of the Congress will be filmed and archived.
See the programme of the Congress here...
Asked about the aim of the Congress Artur Żmijewski answered:
- This is exactly the situation where I don't know what the conclusion will be. We don't prodce a work of art here, rather an open situation. Some people have already said that the idea is absurd. Some said that this kind of Jewish renaissance movement has been functioning in Poland for a while now. Others said they agree that the Jews should return. (http://wyborcza.pl/1,75475,10930052,Sprawdzam_sile_sztuki.html)
Bartana's three-part film series straddling the fine line between documentary, fiction, propaganda, myth and politics, is on show in galleries around the globe throughout 2012. ... and Europe Will Be Stunned is on show at the Louisiana Museum in Humlebaek, Denmark 28th of February - 20th of May 2012 and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands between the 24th of March through the end of August 2012, as well as at London's Art Angel between the 22nd of May - 1st of July 2012. It will be shown at Secession in Vienna between December 2012 and January 2013.
Source: press materials, www.jrmip.org, www.gazeta.pl, http://www.berlinbiennale.de/blog/en/projects/the-jewish-renaisance-movement-in-poland-5514
Editor: PK, MG (En)