RAPESEED

An interview by art historian and curator Monika Branicka with the artist Magdalena Ciemierkiewicz

You’re having your first solo exhibition in Germany at KVOST in Berlin (Kunstverein OST)  on the occasion of receiving the Claus Michaletz Preis scholarship and award. What’s the exhibition about?

– The title is RAPESEED. I took the title from one of my videos, which is tied to my hometown of Koniaczów in southeast Poland and its fields, where mass executions took place during World War Two, and where the Nazis later built a crematorium. This was part of a project to erase all traces of the war crimes that occurred there in 1943 and 1944. The bodies from the mass graves in my village and the surrounding areas were exhumed and burned in the fields, which were then ploughed. Today, there is no sign of what happened there, and one of the plants that grow in those fields is rapeseed. I use the English word for the title on purpose because it contains ‘rape’ and ‘seed.’ As such, it is an exhibition that looks at history, the long-term effects of wartime violence, how we negotiate memory, and the processes it undergoes in a contemporary context.

What works are you showing at the exhibition?

One of the most important pieces is Chernozem (2022). This textile is a study of the substance of soil, combining the symbol of the most fertile lands, the black soil (or chernozem), with a carpet, which brings it into everyday household space. It refers to the fertile fields where crimes were committed, but also to the memory preserved in private, household, family spaces, which remains quite vivid and present, even though these events occurred long ago.

The exhibition also features Ghosts-Forms (2023–24), recorded in fields where genocide was committed. This video depicts something I call a ‘memory ritual’. It is a walk during which my sisters and I searched for the place where these killings might have occurred. We followed the accounts of my grandmother, who was around twenty at the time, and testimonies of other witnesses. Part of the video is also a narrative based on archival witness testimonies from 1946. 

The most recent piece is Diffused Herbarium (2024). I embroidered this work on a linen textile that is nearly one hundred years old. This piece is inspired by Ukrainian embroideries from the National Museum in Przemyśl and the history of the former Stryvihor Regional Museum, founded by Olena Kulchytska in 1932, and closed by the Polish communist government as a result of tensions between Poles and Ukrainians in 1945. Today, the remains of this collection are kept in the National Museum in Przemyśl but are not available to the general public. Many people have no idea that such a museum ever existed.

Part of this piece includes Pysanky, recreations of original eggs from the National Museum in Przemyśl, which were previously part of the Stryvihor Museum collection I mentioned. They survived, even though that museum no longer exists. They are over one hundred years old, and so the fragile organic material of the eggshells is gradually disintegrating. I recreated the eggs with Ukrainian artist Diana Sozonova using archival photographs. I should also mention Arkadiusz Jełowicki, an ethnographer who wrote his PhD thesis on Ukrainian collections in Poland. He devoted an entire chapter to Stryvihor, which led me to seek out particular Easter eggs.

The history of the museum in Stryvihor is very interesting in terms of shaping collective memory. After World War II, when the museum ceased to exist, the collections of Ukrainian culture were buried in a storehouse and have not been displayed to this day. It was the museum institution that made the decision to hide, to erase all memory of one of the cultures. Museums enact specific cultural policies, both through their charters and in the state’s interest, which means they are not always innocent. It is a paradox that, while some use art to manipulate the image of history, you want to use art to open people’s eyes to it. How do you see this?

I think we have to distinguish between two things – art and culture – because cultural institutions operate according to their policies, and we must remember that these policies changed over time. After 1945, for instance, we entered the communist period, but even that had various internal phases, and museum directors changed too. There were also those who worked to preserve Ukrainian culture. This raises the question of how we can use art to try to change society, and institutions as well. 

The substance of your art is history. How do you get to your sources, what does your research look like? Tell us about your artistic practice, please.

An important part of my practice is visiting archives. In 2023, while gathering materials to work on embroidery, I conducted preliminary research in the archive of the National Museum in Przemyśl, which helped me reinterpret Ukrainian patterns. I was inspired by the process of destruction caused by moth larvae, which eat the colorful wool threads, making the embroidery slowly vanish. What remains is a bare, ‘blank’ canvas, which is why the patterns appear and disappear on my textile, as if spilling over the canvas. Sometimes I incorporate my own shapes and abstract patterns. This process is not a literal reconstruction of the archive; it is highly intuitive.

While working on the history of memory sites in Koniaczów, I also delved into the archives of the Institute of National Memory—interviews conducted with the local population right after the war. The literature offers very little on this subject, and it is mainly through witness reports that we know most about what transpired there.

You’re a very young artist. Why are you interested in what took place eighty years ago? Why is this topic important to you today?

It’s due to the current political situation, where memory in Poland is highly nationalized, particularly in the peripheral regions, even though they were multicultural in the past. You can still find old trees and ruins of Ukrainian or Jewish architecture there, objects that date back to the pre-war period. These ruins are often abandoned and forgotten; today, most of the culture is uniformly Polish and Catholic. This highlights the contrast between how we view culture today and how it used to be. That’s one aspect.

The second aspect is that identity itself is nationalized. Today, we are defined quite precisely by our passport and language. Previously, however, due to the multitude of cultures in a relatively small area, identity was much more fluid. For me, crossing identity barriers has a political dimension, especially in light of the current nationalization in political movements and the resurgence of fascism, both in Poland and in many other countries as well.

I think here we should add that in the past, society was quite multicultural, but on the other hand, there were enormous tensions between the Polish and Ukrainian populations. The coexistence of these two nations and religions was not idyllic…

– Yes, and if we add the antisemitism in the countryside, this idyllic image vanishes entirely. Then, if we add the poverty of those regions, the picture becomes even less rosy. On the other hand, we should also point out that the way we see it today could be quite different from how it really was. We never have one-hundred-percent access to history. One village could have been quite polarized, while in another, people knew both languages and coexisted peacefully. For instance, a Ukrainian family lived near my grandmother; during Operation Vistula, they were forcibly resettled, and their home was burned down.  Those two houses were so close to each other that my grandma had to pour water on her house to keep the fire at bay. I know from family stories that the two families were in very close contact.

In those regions, the entire historical narrative is focused on conflict and the Polish–Ukrainian war. Most of the monuments are dedicated to the victims of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army or the Banderites. But no one recalls the positive microhistories between people, which could serve as examples today. We don’t need to remember only the conflicts, especially since this is what the extreme right wants. This is why I’m most interested in the individual, positive stories.

We should also explain that during World War II, the situation in eastern Poland was far more complicated than we might think. There were not just two, but four sides to the conflict: German, Polish, Ukrainian, and Soviet. To this, we should also add fluid identities, multiculturalism, and different religions, such as Judaism.

– Yes, Jewish culture, but also Romani, Lemko, and Boyko. In the place I’m describing, the Nazis murdered Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, and Soviet prisoners of war. This multicultural aspect highlights the universal nature of memory. Regardless of the political situation, a crime against humanity is always a crime. That is why remembering the mass killings in Koniaczów is still essential, as the remains of people of various nationalities are present there. In the context of the war between Russia and Ukraine or the situation in Gaza, the memory of such places signals that genocide is a crime regardless of who the victim is. It is also important to stress that nationalism, whether in the realm of memory or otherwise, is sustained not only through war itself but also through its long-term consequences.

Speaking of painful historical events, you are trying to create  private, ‘positive’ memory that unites in places of traditional ‘negative’ memory that divides. Why? 

-To my mind, the most important aspect of upholding memory is solidarity. I prefer forms of commemoration that do not focus on great heroes, but on ordinary gestures, like walking through a space and telling its story. We can also find solidarity between different groups of memory. Michael Rothberg speaks of multidirectional memory and emphasizes that the memory of one group does not have to exclude the memory of others. Remembering slain Poles does not mean we cannot also remember others who perished: Ukrainians, Jews, Roma, and Lemkos. Comparisons of these various stories are perhaps most valuable when they promote solidarity, not antagonism. Rothberg also argues that when memory is used as a national tool, it will inevitably foster conflict. However, when we break the connection between memory and national narratives, we open ourselves up more broadly to human concerns.

You look for positive events in history? Why? What should that teach us? 

I don’t want to live in a world where that diversity is forgotten. When I visit large cities, I see that they are the contemporary borderlands. People of various cultures live in these metropolises, even though the countries they come from are often mutually hostile. The countryside was once the same.

You’re right, the picture of social and ethnic diversity has shifted over the last hundred years, from the provinces to the city centers. Cities have become multicultural, while the countryside has become homogeneous. What role does contemporary art play in all of this?

It plays an enormous role in shaping perceptions, partly through its presence in public spaces. For instance, in Przemyśl, there is a project called The Centre of Worlds Is Here by Liliana Kalinowska and Jadwiga Sawicka, which draws, in part, from the stories of women of various nationalities living and working in Przemyśl. One of their projects commemorated women of three nationalities—a Pole, a Jew, and a Ukrainian—who lived in the same building in Przemyśl at different times. One of them was Olena Kulchytska, whom I have mentioned. Jadwiga and Liliana placed a plaque on the building to commemorate these three women. However, even before the plaque was unveiled—on the very day it was installed—someone destroyed it. The local newspapers began debating whether it was appropriate to commemorate an artist who used art, education, and cultural activities to promote Ukrainian independence. This way of thinking assumes that these actions were somehow against Poles, and conversely, that Polish independence in these lands must automatically exclude other social groups. So, we see that these tensions are still very much alive today.

Do you think that art is sufficient here to make society more open?

I know that aesthetics and images have great power to influence how we tell stories. I believe we can reach people’s emotions this way and prompt them to reflect.

I’m asking about the efficacy of art because you are dealing with events from eighty years ago that still cause pain. Meanwhile, we’ve arrived at a moment when history is coming full circle, and new wounds are being inflicted. We cannot avoid the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict in this conversation. Did you begin your work before Russia attacked Ukraine?

Yes, I began by photographing abandoned Greek Catholic churches, which I sometimes visit. In 2021, I started my PhD project, Herstory for Many Voices, which stemmed from an autobiographical approach—not strictly individual experiences, but rather in contact with others, with history, and the whole context in which I work. That led me to a deeper analysis of the history in this region.

The Polish-Ukrainian conflict from eighty years ago that you speak of today—does it have any repercussions in the present Ukrainian-Russian conflict?

Yes, primarily because the Polish state is highly nationalistic and closed. Foreigners in Poland do not have it easy. Ukrainians come to Poland, and our entire system, our whole culture, is still Polish-centric, focused on one version of history, etc. This leads to conflict and tensions, as these people see that Polish historical imperialism still exists. I would like us to begin moving beyond this. We can create a country that is not focused on a single national group, but one that can be multicultural and welcoming to others. This relates to nearly all of our modern-day conflicts. We also have the situation at the Polish-Belarusian border, where refugees are trying to get past a wall built to keep them out. This stems from the fact that we do not want this ‘invasion of outsiders’—we are still afraid of them.

This concerted effort to maintain a culturally monolithic image of society reminds me of the situation in Krakow’s Kazimierz, known as a Jewish district. Back in the 1970s, the government purposely let it crumble, to wipe out all historical memory of the place. Today, Kazimierz is restored and visited by thousands of tourists a day, mainly from Israel and the USA. In my view, neither the narrative about Jewish Kazimierz nor the one about non-Jewish Kazimierz is entirely accurate. Why do the tourists looking at a synagogue fail to notice the two largest Gothic Catholic churches in Krakow, literally behind them? Why have they been there since the fourteenth century? Because historically, Kazimierz was a place of two cultures: Jewish and Christian. Why do we deny that two (or more) cultures can coexist? Why must we stubbornly build a homogeneous cultural image of the past instead of learning tolerance from our ancestors?

Yes, even though shtetls, such as Izbica in the Lublin Voivodeship, existed in the past, Polish and Jewish cultures were quite intertwined. Since 2022, I have joined Zapomniane Foundation and the Formy Wspólne in running the Sukkah Project in Izbica, where I argue that through memory, we can return to interculturality and open a door to the future. Izbica is a small town that was mainly populated by Jews before the war, but where Poles settled after 1945. Now, they can play the role of guardians of memory.

When we look at events you mention, like the destruction of a commemorative plaque, it doesn’t seem to bode well for the future. How do you see it?

I’m not sure if you can say it bodes poorly, because it seems to me that the younger generation has a totally different perspective. Or at least, I hope so.

At the Berlin exhibition, you speak of stories that are quite new to the Germans, from the Polish borderlands eighty years ago. Meanwhile, Germans have an issue with Polish art because they say Poles are emotionally stuck in World War II and still play the victim. It bores them; they’re tired of it. They have their own stories, like the resettlement of Germans from the former eastern lands of the Third Reich and its borderlands, or the division between East and West Berlin, where KVOST Gallery is currently located. What do you think—how will your story and exhibition be received here? Can it be interpreted universally? Are borderlands a universal concept?

I think this theme remains quite painful and hasn’t been fully worked through. Whether or not Berliners know Polish-Ukrainian history or are tired of World War II, the theme of this memory still requires attention. It’s not as though we can establish memory once and for all, put it on a pedestal, and turn the page. Politics and context change, as does the way the story is told. One problem the exhibition addresses is the fact that, unlike large cities, the countryside is mostly homogeneous and closed off. This is true in Germany as well. Yes, we are in Berlin, but nearby there’s Brandenburg, with its small towns and villages.

Moreover, we can view this exhibition through the lens of events in Israel and Germany’s relationship to what’s happening there. The memory here still seems traumatized and burdened by Nazism. I observe that in Germany, it is difficult to separate Holocaust memory from criticism of a state that is committing ethnic cleansing. World War II was also the genocide of the Roma, and the slaughter of civilians of various nationalities, religions, sexual orientations, and the diseased. I think my work conveys a universal idea that we don’t need to resettle ‘others’ to build a state, and that a state doesn’t have to be nationalist.

Recently, a Ukrainian activist was shot dead in Lviv. She once said that eastern Poland was ethnically Ukrainian. In that case, since more people speak Russian in eastern Ukraine, should those lands belong to Russia? This is, of course, extreme. This way of thinking undermines the order established after 1945.

But that order and those borders were also created as a result of conflicts.

Yes, but now they exist. And maybe it would be better to focus on shaping a different kind of state, striving for a multicultural society, rather than a nationalist one.

Then every state would have to agree on this model of statehood. This would mean the concept of the nation would be undermined, and nationality would have to take a completely different form.

This is why working on identity models is important—to show that identity instead of being fixed or permanent, may be a fluid concept. We know a person can’t change their identity from day to day, because they operate within a certain framework. But those frameworks don’t have to be defined forever. We also shape identity through contact with other cultures, through language, and various other factors.

There are also states with multiple official languages, like Switzerland.

In Poland, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian was introduced in many places. That’s a step in the right direction.

That sounds like a vision of a new concept of states that are not defined by nationality. States that define themselves through something else, such as their economic, financial, or educational systems, or through other forms of organization, but not through nationality.

On the other hand, if we no longer have the concept of the nation, what will unite us in the event of an invasion, so that we fight for our territory?

Our social or legal structure, for instance?

Or our presence, our life in a place, local culture.

Is art the best tool for teaching tolerance and showing that such a state is possible?

I think art influences culture and institutions, starting with museums and continuing to schools and the Church, which, in turn, have a powerful impact on shaping our views. For example, where I live, the Church likes to scare people with talk of Islamification when discussing the crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border. I don’t know if art reaches everyone, but I can reach those institutions, for instance.

How do you want to get through to the Church? How do you plan to change it?

By speaking of spirituality, and the fact that the Church as an institution does not have a monopoly on it. That’s important. People are leaving religion, but they often find nothing to replace it. So they search for spirituality, or they feel a void in their lives. Maybe art is a response. Art shows that spirituality doesn’t have to exist within institutional frameworks—it can be found in ordinary things, like contact with nature, or in personal rituals. For me, it was sewing beads every day for The Veil (2016-22). It took me six years to complete, and I recorded the process in my room. Meditation is a deeply personal part of every religion, including Catholicism, like when you pray with a rosary. That work was a form of spirituality for me, one that was anti-institutional.

Right, let’s talk about the textiles. You make videos and installations, but you also work a lot with textiles. That brings to mind women’s art, or of course, feminist art. What’s your approach to it?

I’m intuitively drawn to textiles because they are process-based. The process of making textiles is crucial—building them from small parts. On the other hand, textiles are quite malleable; they don’t exist without the space they occupy. Of course, there’s no getting away the feminine aspect here, as women have always woven and decorated, but it’s also about telling herstories. And herstories are very important to me. For example, discussions of war are dominated by a male perspective. All the monuments are dedicated to war heroes, and we are used to this very androcentric narrative. It’s almost as though it’s not appropriate to speak of genocide while wearing a floral skirt.

And do your textiles make reference to artists like Magdalena Abakanowicz? Or do you see any parallels?

Textiles are just one of the mediums I use. It’s not that I only work with textiles—I like to change my means of expression. The natural earth tones of Magdalena Abakanowicz’s textiles remind me of black soil, so there may be certain parallels. But I also create very colorful works. And that color doesn’t prevent me from addressing very traumatic experiences. We don’t have to tell painful stories using dark, gloomy tones; we can also try to heal or process trauma through color.

What color is especially meaningful to you?

Definitely ultramarine, which most often appears in my work alongside black, and sometimes with other colors. In many cultures, blue—especially when it’s quite intense—has spiritual connotations. Spirituality is very important to me, as I was raised in a Catholic family. Particularly in my early work, I began with the idea that Catholic spirituality is quite rigid. I started to notice the difference between institutional spirituality and a more free, personal spirituality, which was prevalent in the countryside and maintained by women. For example, the May service, though connected to the Church, has pre-Christian origins. To this day, many pre-Christian rituals have been absorbed by religion. It’s a paradox that Polish history is said to begin with Christianity, while everything that came before is largely ignored—even though it remains a part of our culture today.

That brings us back to multiculturalism, where we began. You were brought up in borderlands, in the country, which is now quite monocultural, but you are open to all cultures. How did that happen?

– Everything goes back to the personal. I once had a boyfriend who came from Iraq. I was working at an international school in Warsaw at the time and I saw families that were multicultural and that this was possible in Warsaw, whereas it wasn’t at home in the country. For many people around me it was inconceivable that two religions could be united. I encountered a world where this could not happen. I was much younger then and I had a hard time going through that. Then I began to wonder why it was. I saw a huge difference between how things were in the big city and in the countryside.

You mean you yourself were affected by intolerance?

Yes, that’s right, but my art is also about negotiating my surroundings – including those that don’t fully accept my choices. For me, it’s a kind of dialogue with the previous generation and the status quo.

Your artworks reflect your family history: in the video All Souls’ Day (2023), you clean your grandma’s old house, which is marked for demolition. You’re joined by your dad, who tells you stories from his childhood about how his parents’ Ukrainian neighbors’ house was burned down. You show what intolerance leads to.

Yes, the act of cleaning connected three generations. I learned about those neighbors while I was working on my PhD. Today, there is no trace of that house, and I probably would never have known about it if I hadn’t started asking questions. By cleaning, I wanted to highlight the existence of that house, because when it’s dismantled, it will likely also disappear from memory. Maybe that’s why it still exists.

So art is effective, at least in these microhistories?

– Yes, it will survive, in the video at least. Memory will remain.

Why is memory so important to us as a society, but also as individuals? Why do we have to work through it?

Memory shapes our perspectives, because we think by telling stories. Most of our stories about the present are rooted in the past.

Does memory of the past have something in common with preserving the truth for the future?

– It connects the past, present and future.