Artistic residency in Gdansk – what happened?

During 14-19 October the artistic residency in Gdansk took place – a part of the project Memory of Water, which is developed by members of the River Cities Network. The residency was hosted by the Baltic Sea Cultural Centre, and at Intercult we are happy to be the lead partner of the Memory of Water-project.

The events were all centred around the former Gdansk Shipyard, the subject and location of the artistic work and activities. Six artists from different countries participated. The topics of the residency were memory, art, water & public spaces, production, green spaces & ecology, and dialogue. It was a busy week with a lot of preparations, partner meetings, workshops and urban labs.

The Swedish artist Jonas Myrstrand was filming and documenting the events in Gdansk. He also showed his film “VR in Shipyard of Gothenburg”, and the audience could see the former shipyard in Sweden where the industrial heritage is lost today. Belgian artist Siegfried Vynck painted on a container standing at Toolmakers street to create an artistic documentary of industrial impressions. Polish artist Iwona Zajac presented “The Broadcast”, a re-creation of Radio Solidarity which operated during martial law in the 1980’s, where the audience got to hear different archival programmes and recordings of former working of the Gdansk Shipyard. Irish artist Mary Conroy made modules in the shape of traditional tools that were used in the old shipyard. These were then filled with seeds that will add new organic growth to the area of the shipyard. Scottish artist T.S. Beall replanted flower beds on Toolmarket street, where the public then had the chance to take part in a workshop with embroidery of flower motives. This was a commemoration to the women workers who handled toxic materials. At last, Greek performance artist Ira Brami presented the story of a previous shipyard-worker through an “experimental promenade performance”, where young school children took part both as participants and audience, which supported aim to find ways to engage young people in Gdansk with the legacy of the old Shipyard.

All artists related to the same theme in different ways: the discovery of- and the connection to the cultural and industrial heritage of the Gdansk Shipyard.

Read more at Baltic Sea cultural Centre Gdansk’w webpage here. And read more about Memory of Water and the other artistic residencies on our webpage here.

Picture of Mary Conroy’s modules.