On the urgent need to create an (INTERNATIONAL) TRADE UNION OF LOVERS OF EASTERN EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE
Text presented as part of the exhibition
Artist and sociologist Piotr Puldzian Płucienniczak, in his manifesto note, calls for the creation of a trade union for lovers of Eastern European landscapes, an organization that opposes division, the fundamental method of which will be radical thoughtfulness.
It is believed that the landscape of Eastern Europe is boring and flat - this is very good, because thanks to this feature, you can efficiently and quickly pierce it with railways. In her work Conquerors of the Sun, Anna Baumgart recalls the train returning gifts to Western Europe: avant-garde artworks (and rifles) in gratitude for the train that brought Lenin to Russia a few years earlier. Progress for progress is a fair exchange. These were truly advanced times, when the railroads were considered a means of progress. It was also believed that progress existed and that it could be transported in a wagon.
The fact that the gift did not reach its destination, but was lost in Kolyushki, should not worry us. On the contrary, it is an ideal place to stop on your journey. No worse than any other within a radius of several hundred (to the west) or a thousand or more (to the east) of kilometers.
By Eastern Europe I mean a sensual rather than a political area. Such a sensual baseness of the political. The landscape of central Poland for me (the commune of Dobryshice, the Radomshansky district, the now defunct Piotrkow Voivodeship) is a paternal and maternal landscape, brotherly and sisterly, stretching from Berlin to the Urals; landscape of the Central European and East European plains. Some people consider this territory to be a "transit" territory, a buffer zone between East and West, a no man's land, a chessboard for the superpowers, a knockout room. But who and where will pass through these lands? We don't need another war. As in the work of Honza Zamoyski (which could be the coat of arms of the access road in Koluszki), we do not go in one direction, because we are at home.
It is not easy to be a patriot of the landscape: the landscape is not a country that can be tied to weapons, it is a way of life, nature, relationships between people. There is no single flag here, but there are many souvenirs from salt mines, water from quarries and river gorges, drills from factories for the production of dental drills or essays on the theme of elementary school holidays. All this is good and necessary, but at the same time it is ambiguous and unusual.
There are no divisions in the landscape: yes, there are hills and rivers, pits and building complexes containing collections of monuments. The network of roads has no end or border, industrial enterprises are connected to power plants by a power transmission network, and to each other by convoys of trucks. It is no coincidence that the sickle is connected to the hammer or the sickle to the sickle (as in work ): work is connected to work, it is impossible to work alone. squirm like snakes inhabiting rotten greenery. The cultural landscape is entangled in a tangle of languages with which you can get along, as did the ancient farmers and forest dwellers - without knowing the boundaries.
But let's go back to the constructivist train and think about what else we can get from this landscape. Not to "take out" like treasures plundered by the invaders, not to "leave" like youth without prospects, but to "take out", as a result of the premises: if A and B, then C. We can call such a political conclusion a gift, just like the gift is the change of seasons. It just happens, nothing can be done about it. From A Europe and B East follows C. What is C?
Answer: (International) Trade Union of Lovers of Eastern European Landscapes. This as yet defunct institution will be dedicated to the protection and promotion of the landscape. Resist what separates him: borders and markets. A general strike that goes beyond logistics and call centers. Radical thoughtfulness is a refusal to participate in the devastation of the landscape. Let human labor serve as common food! Hedgehog protests against military exercises near Baranovichi! Nettle mobilizes against F-16s in Poznań! Ants are mobilizing on the Desna. Everyone and everything is working to keep the landscape intact and free from unnecessary interference. No more war.
The landscape is transboundary and transnational. Unfortunately – unlike plants and animals – people are too attached to the nation, so the internationality of the union is extremely important. I believe that we will establish fruitful cooperation with organizations of railway workers, professional drivers and car mechanics (airplanes are not needed, because everything is located nearby) from all countries of the region and neighboring countries. We invite unions of nurses and midwives, teachers, national park workers, lifeguards and a number of other critical professions. They all share something of their own, and this experience is mutually intelligible.
The Eastern European landscape is for everyone, and everyone (who interests me) lives or comes here. Can this be expressed through art? Can it express what is happening here, as opposed to what is happening elsewhere, happening in a transitive flow, or not happening at all? The beginning should be an honest look at what is (for example, as Ice-Cream Cafe and other artists of the project do), but this is not enough. Perhaps, only by combining languages, one can say something that cannot be conveyed in any of them separately? If this is so, then art should wean us from what we are taught in schools, and additionally teach knowledge about the landscape.
Piotr Puldzian Płucienniczak is an artist and sociologist. First secretary of the Dar Dobryszyc publishing house and member of the Imperium Ducha team. He teaches sensibility and imagination at the Academy of Arts in Warsaw.