The second half of the 1990s and the first half of the next decade in terms of Żmijewski’s work were characterized by topics from the area of social taboos, most often concerning issues of the body degraded by illnesses, disabilities or old age. The artist entered the path of marginalization and otherness by realizing radical works that consider the relation between the able-bodied and those with physical or mental disabilities.
This period may be represented by two of Żmijewski’s films: Singing Lesson 1, 2001 (betacam, running time: 14 min.) and Singing Lesson 2, 2003 (betacam, running time: 16 min.). In both works the artist cooperated with choirs composed of deaf-mute children and youth.
In Singing Lesson 1 participated alumni of the Deaf-Mute Institute in Warsaw. They performed Kyrie from Jan Maklakiewicz’s Polish Mess (composition from 1944) with organ music backing their voices. Żmijewski’s film is almost a documentary on this incredible occurrence of cacophonic and caricatured style (according to acclaimed pedagogic standards in teaching vocal). The choir’s participants work in a way that is completely unknown to themselves: they do not hear sounds and normally do not make them. For them, trying to make a sound is a heroic manifestation of otherness and at the same time a deep metaphor of praying. Żmijewski:
One can hear a chaotic tune and deformed words; choristers do not hear themselves, some of them do not even know what sound is. Against all odds, we hear music that carries crumpled words of the Apostle’s Creed: ‘I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth…’ The impossible is made flesh, despite that the flesh is weak and disabled.
Although both versions may work independently, Singing Lesson 1 was treated by the artist as the dress rehearsal before another realization. Singing Lesson 2 was realized in St. Thomas Cathedral in Lipsk. Żmijewski asked a group of young, deaf alumni of Samuel-Heinicke-Schule für Schwerhörige to perform with the Barockensemble der Fachrichtung Alte Musik orchestra. They worked together on Johann Sebastian Bach’s music, including Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben. This time, the musicians were joined by a professional cantatrice. The place chosen by the artist for the choir’s appearance is significant and symbolic: Bach was a cantor in Lipsk and is buried there. For the fans of his music it is a special place, identified with his greatest records. Bach’s cantatas performed by the deaf-mute artists become a strong rejection of the foregoing order. Żmijewski shows how hard the real acceptance of handicapped persons is, even when we fully accept their otherness.
Professor Susanne Scholz referred to the project in the following manner:
A meeting and joined performance of professional musicians who devoted their lives to music and young deaf people for whom music is almost inaccessible, is at first a cause of embarrassment and concern. However, in the end it is the gap between them that helps to gain a distant view on one’s own embarrassment, to notice smiles on the young peoples’ faces who manage to open more and more with every minute of singing.
For the deaf-mute performers the fact that they participated in activities they had previously been excluded from was an act of transcendence; they managed to open themselves to previously inaccessible experiences.
Author: Ewa Gorządek, February 2016, translated by Antoni Wiśniewski, February 2016
