What I Feel Becomes Felt

 

The project refers to one of the most primeval and intimate forms of folk singing, present in almost every culture. The artist invited a group of pregnant women and mothers of young children to create a lullaby together with her. She began the collaboration by a conversation and questions concerning the feelings and reception of situations of isolation from the mother’s perspective. “I received many poignant responses, words full of care and consideration, but also fear of the future,” says Kamila Kobierzyńska. Fragments of what the young women shared with her were then used to write the lyrics and melody. Due to the epidemic, the lullaby was performed and recorded remotely. Kamila Kobierzyńska sent the score and sound equipment by post, asking the women to record their singing “while putting their babies to sleep or directing the singing towards the baby bump”. 

What emerged after combining the tracks of the recorded singing was rhythmic polyphony, which was then split into several bands transmitted in the gallery space by means of a sound installation designed by the artist. It is a kind of a mobile whose form resembles the merry-go-rounds which are often hung above cots. The bare membranes of the speakers and “broken” construction of the installation bring to mind fragility and nakedness, encouraging mindfulness while listening.     

Women participating:

Kamila Berbecka 
Kaja Billert  
Marta Ewa Buczkowska 
Anna Bułat 
Alicja Frankowska 
Karolina Grzeszczuk 
Kasia Love 
Kasia Michalska 
Magda Miśkiewicz 
Maria Moderska-Andrzejak 
Barbara Sibila 
Joanna Świerczyńska  
Barbara Urbańska   

Technical support: Tomasz Pawłowski, Andrzej Szwabe 

Kamila Kobierzyńska lives and works in Poznań. Since 2014, she has been co-running Studio II at the Department of Photography of the University of the Arts in Poznań, as well as managing the Photography Studio at the Zamek Culture Centre in Poznań. She studied film and TV at the Institute of Creative Photography of the Silesian University in Opava, as well as photography at the University of the Arts in Poznań. The artist’s main field of interest is the notion of individual memory, postmemory of generations and their identity. She involves communities in her projects, analyses relationships of humans with their environment, as well as broadly understood archives. Education, workshops and exhibitions are integral parts of her artistic activity. Since 2019, she has been working on her doctoral project “When cherries blossom. Postmemory and transmission of trauma”.