The Camel Workshop - the Road Performance
Go away... from dreams to reality.
A project, a coordination, a screenplay and a direction: Roman Dziadkiewicz, co-operation: Soeren Grammel, Joanna Motyka, Zorka Wollny, Ewa Pluta, Michał Jandura, Anna Morawska-Jandura.
Leads:: Daniel Banaczek, Roman Dziadkiewicz, Maciej Grabysa, Katarzyna Kępa, Beniamin Lazar, Adam Wiedemann, Zorka Wollny, Monika Wróbel and others.
Production: the Foundation 36,6 and the artists.
Co-operation: The Foundation Germinations Europe, the Arsenal Gallery, the Bunker Sztuki Gallery, Goethe Institute Krakow, the press Multipol, the Culture Foundation.
It is an action, which we are going to carry out in... a future (or in a dimension of fictional construcion). The concept is to realiza a journey of over two months, on camels, across the India from Rajasthan to the east coast. It is an action from the frontiers of performance, the theatrical or para - theatrical actions (the mysteries, the pilgrimages, the Indian ramilie, the Jewish wajang or the rich tradition of the contemporary avant-garde) with the contemporary elements - the media experience (for example computer games, reality-TV), film, the subculture of travellers and with the 'trans' trip experiences. The social-political situation, the growing culture conflicts are a very important context for a prepared project. The principal aim of the journey is the definition and the negotiation of our own place (us - participants, the country from which we are from - placed culturally, politically and economically between the east and west, the symbolic - south and the (rich) north).
RD: We' re setting out from Rajasthan, from the regions, which for centuries have been the frontier between Islamic culture and Hinduism and Buddhist culture - this is the mix of Far Eastern culture. We will go from there (...) further to the east (...) until the mythic East Coast, at the Bengal Gulf...
There are going to be several dozen days of a serial registering in participant's minds - in our imagination and memory . The para -documental 'living' film about reality and space - this will be realistic, social (the relations between the participants, between us and local people) and virtual. During the journey we are going to carry out shared and individual projects and actions with local people and children in a local space.
Before a journey - during the cycle of meetings/performances and presentations in the galleries and in the clubs - we are presenting the project establishments, the visual elements - the billboards, the postcards, the action's authors. You can talk to us, to drink the traditional Indian tea (czaj). We are creating a situation like the promotional 'tour' of the big commercial film productions.
4-6 people are going to take part in the journey itself. Each one of them 'carries' an action and owns skills and has their own personality, sensitivity and their owns ideas- like in jazz composition. The interaction with local people is going to be the action's most important aspect. The participants are artists, musicians, a journalist, a writer and an actor-educationalist. We are going to carry out a project; as a theatrical event with marked contemporary elements of the cultural contexts: marketing, neo/post colonialism and realistic- fictional situations.
After the return, we are going to carry out the third part of the project in the form of meeting/ performance/ conference cycles, where we are going to present 'the verbal documentation' of an action, which everyone has memorized, experienced and noticed. We are remembering from the beyond - verbal communication media and documentation trying to use the oldest and the principal form of media - the oral form. We consider, that the difficult subjects and social questions, which will come back as the action's summary (concerning our difficulties with an action's fulfilment and the contexts in India and Poland) you can analyse above all by the principal means: a language, a dialog, a discussion.
*) the exhibitions/ presentations: the Art Bunker Gallery (Krakow 05-06 2001), the Kont Gallery(Lublin 12.2001), The Arsenal Gallery (Bialystok 01-02.2002, The Manhattan Gallery (Lodz 10.2002), the Sthm Art. Fair (Stockholm 03.2003) and others.
The opinions, the comments and the inspirations.
Roman Dziadkiewicz is one of the most interesting artists of the Polish young generation. Working on the frontier of the artistic, social or educational questions, taking advantage, very consciously, of contemporary technology, the techniques, the conventions (digital media, internet, printing, the marketing and design elements) and the experiences related to working in a group, applying, for example, the 'multiple authorship' strategy. During the last few months he has carried out many projects, for example at the Art Bunker Gallery (.) and in the public space, disclosing a talent, a sensitivity, the skills and a potential, which in 'the camel workshop' are appearing particularly clearly.
(Jaroslaw Suchan , Bunkier Sztuki Gallery director, from an opinion about a project)
KK: I don't know who wants me there, I have only the images, and they are never the same as reality. I'm sure that after this journey I will be somebody else. (Katarzyna Kepa, from the catalogue 'Germination 13 -Get Out')
DB: I think that it would be a good idea 'obout India' to contact the World Health Organisation and to learn how you can help in India concretely by the means of the journey. It would be good to co-operate with different social organisations. (Daniel Banaczek, from the catalogue 'Germination 13 -Get Out').
EP: ..and this contrast: everybody has now everything quickly, and we, we will go very slowly, uncomfortably, for others without a point ( I'm hearing already these voices: a waste of time, a waste of money!) on the camels. Maybe we won't take our watches? (Eva Pluta, from the catalogue 'Germination 13 - Get Out').
'Germinations' is the European project, the artistic exchange aims to promote young artists and curators. This year the 13th edition takes place (.), which assumes a form (.) privates exhibitions prepared by four young curators in four different European galleries. One of them is the Arsenal Gallery in Bialyostok.. ("Get away from/to Bialystok', Raster nr 58)
