Part of the Festival of Migration collection “Visual art exhibition made in collaboration with members of the Polish community in Edinburgh to explor Slavic art, folklore and myths.”

About this event

“Kraina – The Land On the Edge exhibition” is a short animation and visual art exhibition led by Marta Adamowicz and Robert Motyka, made in collaboration with members of the Polish community in Edinburgh to explore traditional Slavic art, folklore and myths.” “Examining the physical and metaphorical notions of ‘home’ and belonging, they invited participants on a journey of discovery through a series of workshops using the traditional techniques of paper cut-outs. The artworks were later digitised and animated into a short film form with an accompanying soundtrack by traditional acapella group Davno.” “While reconnecting with the Slavic myths all participants were encouraged to revisit and reclaim the question “Where are you from?.” “The title of the project ‘Kraina: the Land on the Edge’ is a direct answer to this question and it can be understood as a reference to both geographical and metaphorical location; a country on the map or a realm between reality and fantasy where dreams and nightmares transcend. In a migrant experience, there is also an added meaning that refers to the lives led in between and ‘on the edge’ of the two countries, two cultural codes, and two languages.” “The land on the edge’ can also be read as a ‘periphery’ and as such it reflects a socio-political lived experience through “institutionalised systemic reliance on cheap labour from Eastern Europe, externalisation of its social costs and ..removal of those who become ‘costly’..[this] normalises the extraction of precarious labour and relocation of its costs to Europe’s East and thereby reinforce[s] the peripheralisation of the region’.(* East–west inequalities and the ambiguous racialisation of ‘Eastern Europeans’ Aleksandra Lewicki)” “Polish and Central and Eastern European communities rarely appear in the mainstream discourse in a context different than referring to their working status, and even if described in a positive way they are often equipped with a Homeric epithet of ‘hard-working’ that reduces their presence to useful labour.” “All these interpenetrating meanings come in one as an amalgam that is migrant identity and culture.The Polish community exists in such contexts and the artists navigate them unapologetically reclaiming ‘the land on the edge’. They probe whether the old traditions are still relevant, and if re-reading them can contribute to how Eastern Europeans define themselves today independently of imposed and often internalised stereotypes. The project is defined by nature’s cycle following the calendar of the old festivals that relate to the crucial elements in human life: love, hope, fear and death. Through creating a safe space, inviting people to the table, and engaging in traditional techniques, now often seen as a child’s activity, all participants return straight to the roots of the community. Intergenerational experience and exchange are prompted by the theme of old legends and folk tales with artworks creating a pretext for connection with culture, and each other but also with oneself.” “The traditional patterns are transformed and reinterpreted in creative experiments. Cut out of paper they are fragile and ephemeral – they come to life when digitised and animated; layered and assembled into collages. The new connections are made between the artworks but foremostly between the participants.”