Homecoming

This work is an attempt to confront the transgenerational traumas embedded in my body. Recurring pain in my legs and excessive hair loss became the impetus to recount difficult family stories, linked to women’s returns home, which I unfold in the text of the whisper manifestation. Pain travels through the generations until someone is able to see and feel it.

Matter can serve as an archive of events. Like in the rings of a tree, there’s history recorded in a wooden threshold, that is worn down over the years by the soles of shoes, noting greetings, farewells, hopes and unspoken words. The threshold from my family home, presented in the installation, could be freely crossed. Its placement blurs the boundary between entry and exit. For me, it is an element of a rite of passage.

On the other hand the ceramic object symbolises a nest, a home. I created it using the raku technique with dry grasses and my own hair, which, as it burned, left a mark – except for the grey strands, as they no longer contain any pigment. I made it. Hair used to have ritual significance – linking the past with the present. Its loss is sometimes interpreted as a lack of security, a broken bond, a need for closeness. This symbolism recalls my separation from my father, a syndrome of rejection and the difficulty of returning – as with my grandmother, driven from her home by her own father. Do I mark my presence with loosing hair, like Hansel and Gretel scattering breadcrumbs to find their way home?

I utter the words of this whispering with the intention of breaking my loyalty to my ancestors – of cleansing the ancestral legacy that does me no good:

Grandma Stefania, I remember you as a warm, family-oriented, smiling woman – a noble person. As a child, I received so much love and a sense of home from you, even though you yourself, as a young person, were deprived of it. I can only imagine the blow you suffered at the hands of your father, my grandfather Andrzej, who sent you (alone of all your siblings) to Germany for forced labour during the war. For me, the very thought is painful. Despite this, you had plenty of time to get used to the situation – perhaps you even forgave your father, perhaps you rationalised his decision to yourself. And when you were finally able to return home thanks to the pass, you were dealt another blow. I don’t know if that one wasn’t even more painful than the first. How did you cope with that, Granny? How must you have felt, seeking shelter with strangers?
I know what that feels like, Granny. I had to walk over to my friends’ parents’ houses in my pyjamas several times myself, asking for shelter. And that was because of a father, too – my father Marek. I’m sure I share the shame and humiliation of it all with you. Many times I asked myself whether I wanted to go home, feeling torn inside. When I went to boarding school, I began to build up my strength, but during the holidays I had to return to my family home. Perhaps that is why, every summer, my legs feel heavy, they swell so much that I cannot straighten them – as if they wanted to save me from having to return, from the difficult encounter with my father and all the emotions that subsided when I was far away.
Grandma, I can see how everything is connected. I can see that, alongside the many wonderful things that flow from this connection for me, there are also those that weigh me down and do not serve my well-being. Therefore, here and now, standing in my full strength, I decide to sever this pattern – and in doing so, I release my legs, my veins and my spleen from this burden. I give thanks for the gifts and cast off the burdens, so that I may walk through life with lightness. I have the right to experience my life in a unique way, without repeating patterns that do not serve me. In doing so, I also sever my daughter’s connection to them.
Stefcia, my little Daughter, I gave you this name consciously, thereby linking you to your Grandmother Stefania, but unconsciously I connected you to a programme that is not yours and certainly does not serve you. I feel it is my duty to free you from it now. My darling, walk your own path through life – with lightness, and with the sense that you have a home to which you can always return.