Uncertain States Atlas Project / Strefa WolnoSłowa:
"I have drawn more than you can see here"

How does memory work? What remains in our minds, and what doesn’t? How do we preserve images of familiar places and people? In reaction to the wave of people fleeing to Europe in 2015 and the negative response by Polish society, the Warsaw group Strefa WolnoSłowa under Alicja Borkowska has explored the issue of how so many people in Poland could forget their own flight from war or persecution. An additional inspiration for this work with a multigenerational ensemble of people born in Poland, migrants and refugees was the book Je me souviens (I remember, 1978) by Georges Perec, in which he recalled Paris through all the little everyday things which are never found recorded in history.

With the help of a team of authors, stories collected in the Strefa WolnoSłowa workshops became a multiplicity of personal images and a polyphonic choir narrating post-war history from a Polish perspective and from the perspective of those who have sought refuge in Poland. For “Uncertain States”, Alicja Borkowska has adapted for the Studio the open-air version performed in late June with a cast of more than 30 at the Teatr Powszechny.

I have drawn more than you can see here was developed as part of the European History Atlas Under Construction.