For Marci Shore and Timothy Snyder, we bring a different kind of gift.
Małgorzata Dmitruk — an artist of the borderlands, who describes the world through the language of thread and weaving — has created an extraordinary textile, With Timothy and Marci in Mind: a two-sided, handmade tapestry measuring 200 × 145 × 30 cm, made of cotton canvas, muslin, crochet thread, and yarn.
Its two sides, one light and one dark, tell the story of the same place in the light of day and in the darkness of night. On it, we find the landscape of the borderlands that the award recipients chose not only as a place of work, but also as a place of rest, conversation, family life, and everyday existence: Krasnogruda and Sejny.
The sun and the moon preside over them. As the artist wrote, “it is here that they gave birth to the earth. Two extraordinary phenomena for two extraordinary people. The Miłosz manor. The park with its oaks and linden trees. Lake Hołny. The Borderland House. The White Synagogue. And roads leading in different directions, towards different parts of the world.”
In this gift, one may see a map, or a tablecloth spread out on a table. Someone else may see a warm textile in which one could wrap oneself.
Marci and Timothy are there, too, with their children — Talika and Kalev. They are walking along the path between Sejny and Krasnogruda. Always together, and always on the way.
The gift for the Borderlanders is not merely a work of art. It is a sign of a bond with this place, with its landscape, and with the people who will always be here, in Sejny and Krasnogruda, waiting for the Snyders.
Today, many people listen to their voices closely, searching in them for words that might help us better understand the times in which we have come to live.
Through this gift, we want to remind you of something else as well: behind those voices are people who love, dream, care for those close to them, raise their children, walk through meadows, seek out the shade, gaze across the lake, find moments of silence, and sit together around a shared table.
Our gift, therefore, is not only an expression of gratitude for the books they have written and for the courage to think. It is also an expression of gratitude for the way Marci and Timothy live their everyday lives.
For we believe that it is precisely this existential attentiveness that can become the material from which a bridge is built — a bridge leading towards an understanding of another human being.
Bożena Szroeder