Metal

Iwona Zając

This month, Gdansk-based artist Iwona Zając is our artist-in-residence at Metal in Chalkwell Hall. She is working on her ongoing project entitled The Foreign Woman. The work explores the complex relationships between mother and daughter, being a stranger in your own society or another country, the inheritance of trauma, and also, about discovering what is common when women from different generations are foreigners abroad. To prepare work for the exhibition, she will work with Southend public to explore the notion of stranger and the question “who are we?” There will be an exhibition of her recent work at the Kursaal Gallery Space - 25 August - 2 September.

Stencil Workshops

Public workshops will take place in the Kursaal Galley Space on Saturday 25 & Sunday 26 August, and Saturday 1 & Sunday 2 September (10am to 4pm).

Read more.

The Foreign Woman
The work follows Mrs Zając’s (Iwona’s mother) comment to a teenage Iwona that she was like a stranger to her, and continues on from previous projects: “Mum” (2007-2009) and “The Ideal Woman” (2008-2012).
The artist, who has been working on ideas for this project since 2006, will feature drawings, stencils, paintings and an installation. She will conduct stencil workshops entitled “Family” for children and their parents, and other adults. These workshops will be held at the Festival’s Kursaal Gallery space located on two empty shops on Southchurch Avenue, Southend.
“I work figuratively with memories. I invite the audience on a journey to find an answer to the question, who are we? What happens to our memories, history and culture. Does one remember about his or her identity, and whether it interferes with our assimilation in a foreign country? During the workshops I want to use my experience of being a “foreigner” (I lived and worked in London in 2004-2009) as a basis for dialogue on what we need when we come to a foreign country and start a new life. How to create our own small island in a foreign territory, and how do we find our own space? What may help us”
Iwona Zajac’s The Foreign Woman also draws on the 1936 book Cudzoziemka (The Stranger) by Maria Kuncewiczowa and a film of the same name. In support of this residency, the Festival will screen the film and present readings from the English translation of the book.
Cudzoziemka (The Stranger) – a 1936 Polish psychological novel written by Maria Kuncewiczowa. It is considered a classic from the interwar period of Polish literature, and for a while was serialised in the press (in Kurier Poranny). The film version of Cudzoziemka (115 mins) was directed by Ryszard Ber in 1986, and the screenplay was written the author, Maria Kuncewiczowa. The film has won two awards at the Polish Feature Films Festival in Gdańsk. Details of the film screening, and book reading, will be announced shortly.

 

Written by Colette Bailey 03 August 2012

CONTACT US