The Village of Bridge Bilders
A LETTER TO THE COMMUNITY OF THE BRIDGE IN GALILEE
The inspiration for writing this letter was the journey of the team of Borderland to Western Galilee, in January 2016, or in the month of Sh'vat 5776, or in the month of Rabi al-Awwal 1437... So it happened in the middle of winter, in the New Year for Trees, and the first spring. Above all, however, we travelled to the people and Community of the Bridge.
August 22, 2015
22 August 2015
Saturday morning is warm and sunny. And calm, unlike all previous mornings in the Village of Bridge Builders. And during the last, common breakfast, instead of loud talks and children outshouting each other, there is just nervousness. Tension.
August 21, 2015
- Now close your eyes and not a word. Today we are going to be silent. A lot. Trust the silence and me, I will guide you through the ritual and all our workshop. Only the person holding the stick can speak. Listen to yourselves - says Jacek Bożek. A large group sits in a circle on the pier.
August 20, 2015
Before noon
The Bridge has already connected both shores. The curtain woven during the last few days hangs spread out among the trees at the gates of the amphitheatre. The scenography is almost ready.
The Saturday Mystery Play is approaching.
Just two days left.
August 19, 2015
The night was somehow too short. It did not bring relief. A lot of emotion during morning conversations and even long after the breakfast. You need to let off the feelings of anger and grief, sadness, hopelessness and powerlessness, all that the film showed yesterday by Jessica Kaahwa brought about.
August 18, 2015
Day and Sudden Evening
Children work in their workshops and studios, very serious about their tasks, preparing for Saturday's finale in concentration. Some adults are still looking for their place in the Village, finding out which action offers best role for them. They still have some time for their search.
August 17, 2015
Noon
A new order. The day begins with a meeting in the café, a schedule for the whole week needs to be done, the rhythm of the Village changes. Children have returned to the workrooms they usually work in during the year, adults – masters and guests have already had a chance to get a flavour of each workshop and studio and tried them for themselves. Now they have to settle on one of them.
August 16, 2015
Noon and afternoon
Who's for herbs? Who's for Krzysztof? Who's for Mysteries of Childhood? Franek? Sergey? Jacek? Gwen? Ornit? All present? Follow me, let's begin.
This is the first day of the Workshop of Herbs and Elixirs. Mariola Mitros, its host, opens the cold cellar and strong, intensive fragrances mix at the entrance. - Just like in Jerusalem - says Ilan, an Israeli from East Galilee. Strung on a cord and hanging from a wall are dry linden tree branches, long, slender blades of grass, cornflowers and lavender. On the...
Shortcut press release
They will arrive from different continents to build a bridge on the borderland
Gazeta Wyborcza", Monika Żmijewska, 14 July 2015
"But it will not be an ordinary bridge - a semi-artistic, full of signs and symbols that you will need to be able to read to discover its mystery. But, before the bridge is erected, they will populate the Village Bridge Builders.
Tale Workshop
Tale Workshop The Workshop will be dedicated to two great archetypes, symbols of our culture, the concepts the have accompanied Borderland's work since the beginning: the Bridge and Other - Alien. The sessions will include author's meetings, seminars and lectures referring to the cultural meanings of the myth of Medea and the significance of the icon of the bridge. Participants, by recalling personal
experiences of the transition and by creating emotional bridge maps and exploring the elements of ritual, will create their own...
Mysteries of Childhood Workshop
Mysteries of Childhood Workshop refers to childhood and collects concepts connected with the cradle, home and hearth (e.g. to grandparents, nannies lullabies, rhymes, bedtime, toys, secrets etc.). It also deals with the experience of venturing outside home, starting in the world and first contacts with otherness. The event will take the form of theatre workshops and will be conducted by Bożena Szroeder - director of children's
GRANDPARENTS' AND PARENTS' TOYS
Krasnogruda Pantry Workshop
KRASNOGRUDA PANTRY WORKSHOP a multigenerational workshop with the participation of residents of Krasnogruda and its environs, it
collects information on herbs, medicinal plants, teaches how to recognize and use the herbs found in the surrounding gardens, forests and meadows. It also deals with the rhythm of the land and dependencies between the seasons and nature. Its activities are also come down to offering lessons - workshops on plants and their use in everyday life. The workshop is run by Mariola Mitros -...
Debates on the Bridge
THE BRIDGE – THE ART OF LIFE
Dialogues on the bridge in Krasnogruda
The meetings hosted by Krzysztof Czyżewski
Lidia Ostałowska
Lidia Ostałowska
- Polish journalist, reporter, writer and social activist. One of the founders and member of the board of the ITAKA Foundation.
About herself:
I was born in 1954, in Warsaw. I studied Polish philology at Wasaw Univeristy. I read Krall, Kapuściński, Szejnert and other writers seldom remembered today. I wanted to become a journalist. I succeeded and wrote for "Przyjaciółka", then for the "ITD" weekly magazine.
Lars Jacob Hvinden-Haug
Lars Jacob Hvinden-Haug has a PhD (Dr. ing.) and is an architect, and is employed as a researcher. He has been employed since 2006.
Besides his extensive experience of cultural heritage, through building archaeological surveys and cultural heritage of all periods, Hvinden-Haug has especially worked with the 17th and the 18th Century Norwegian architectural history in an international context and in the light of cultural history. This also applies to architecture related to interior and garden history. He is experienced with...
Jessica Kaahwa
Jessica Kaahwa has been the architect of the space of coexistence and dialog in Uganda, in a very heart of Sub-Saharan Africa. Her main tool for bridge-building work is a theater, with it’s broad understanding, socially engaged, created with both professionals and amateurs, on the university as well as on the streets, sometimes in remote villages. She is working in the capital city Kampala, but also on the borderlands, she remove Rwanda and replace with Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan. S he speaks most Bantu...
Gwen Burnyeat
Gwen Burnyeat is a social activist, writer and scholar, currently involved in political conflict mediation and researching the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó in Colombia, selling their organic chocolate, and co-directing a forthcoming documentary called “Peace Chocolate”. At the same time she is a candidate for a Masters in Social Anthropology at the Universidad Nacional in Bogotá, Colombia and a Leverhulme Trust Study-Abroad Scholar, and also has a scholarship from Colombian...
Yaarach Bar-On
Yaarach Bar-On is a president of the Oranim Academic College of Education. Located in the north of Israel, on the “gate” of multicultural region of Galilee, this exceptional college educating teachers for the whole country has student of different origin and identity, including Jews, Arabs, Druze, Ethiopians. As a president, together with the faculty, she is implementing a very innovative program focused on inter-cultural competence with a challenge to help to build a pluralistic modern society.
Partners
Partners
1. Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) - Oslo, Norway
http://www.niku.no/en/
2. Notodden (municipality), Norway
http://www.notodden.kommune.no/
The Invisible Bridge
A fragment of The Invisible Bridge project by architect Rafał Winiewicz. Rafał Winiewicz - grandson of Wincenty Winiewicz, Sejny potter. Rafał Winiewicz obtained his Architecture Diploma from the Institute of History of Architecture, Arts and Technology of the Wrocław Technical University, prof. Stefan Muller class, majoring in conservation of historical monuments.
Programme Idea
"The Tales of Coexistence" programme develops key lessons of the „Borderland" looking for new, more capacious forms of artistic and educational work, based on the art of interpersonal dialogue and human coexistence. Implementing the fully elaborated by the "Borderland" concept of deep culture - an action deeply immersed in the social and natural environment, it will focus on the process and long duration, and will be geared towards social change and development combining: arts and crafts with knowledge,...
THE VILLAGE OF BRIDGE BUILDERS. Programme
THE VILLAGE OF BRIDGE BUILDERS. Programme
Friday, 14th August
REMEMBERING MIŁOSZ
10.00 a.m. – Meeting with Miłosz in Krasnogruda: In search of Homeland: Czesław Miłosz’s testimony and prophecies (exhibition and story at the Manor House), Gucio zaczarowany (open workshop in “Atelier”)
4.30 p.m. – Polish-Lithuanian liturgy in Żegary church
6.00 p.m. - Meeting in Song of Porcelain Café at the...
Golden Fleece Workshop
The Golden Fleece Workshop (Archaeology of Memory)
will be created by high school youth. Their classes and workshops will be based on collecting stories about the place, meetings with witnesses of old times, conversation in the young people's families, and on remembering the old neighbourhood. The collected stories will build the content of the Book of the Bridge that will be written during the Village of Bridge Builders. The whole will be recorded and documented. The Workshop will be run by Małgorzata Sporek-Czyżewska - artist...
Earth Workshop
The Earth Workshop
will concentrate on the themes related to the "rhythms" of nature. Guided by its masters (ethnologists, ornithologists, botanists, senior residents, herbalists, etc.), it will explore the rituals and ceremonies connected with the Earth and nature calendar - the four seasons. Their task will be to find these threads in mythologies, local legends and oral traditions associated with the directly surrounding nature (trees, lake, herbs, animals, birds). The output of the Workshop will be a kind of an artistic...
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