COLLECT ART

Design assistance: Kuba Szczęśniak

Size: 50 x 50 cm

High Quality Digital Printing

Poster Paper Matte, Fsc 200g, Uncoated

Hand Signed

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The work “A thousand trips” relates to the personal history of my mother’s travels (started in the 90′ ties till now). The trips to work from Poland to Germany  were taken to support her family, improve the living conditions of her growing children, and build her ”dream come true house” that has not been finished. During these journeys, my mother, similarly to many other Polish women carried with her a big, chequered bazaar bag where she puts things that she bought abroad. Nowadays, many Ukrainian migrant workers coming to Poland are using similar types of bags.

The title of the work has been inspired by the book A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. In a broader sense, the work seeks to understand the phenomenon of migration trips taken by people every day to look for a better future out of their own countries.

According to Sylwia Urbańska: “We forget about the structural ground that forced women to leave their family home. And economic problems and poverty are only one point on the long, black list of reasons for trips. Not much is said about it, but many women have also been forced to leave by the lack of any protection from the state against domestic violence or the lack of support in the area of securing and collecting maintenance. The transformation costs were incurred mainly by women from industry and agriculture in the countryside, small towns and peripheral regions of Poland, young and old, mothers, especially single and those with many children, as well as women caring for elderly or sick family members. Trips were and are for women a strategy of survival and survival of families. For many, the first trip is intertwined with the transformation that affects women differently, because it brings feminization of poverty.” After all this time, the decision of my mum to immigrate to build a house while zostawiać her children without her presence still puzzle me and makes me question my understanding of home.¹

1. Sylwia Urbańska, “Polish mother from a distance. From migrant workers’ experiences in 1989-2010”, Toruń 2015

The Colors May Be Slightly Different From The Monitor.

15% of the price will go to one of the children’s homes: 

https://www.domydziecka.org/