Words by the author: What does caring for a family mean? And when is the right time to start a revolution? Is it responsible to take such a risk when you are a woman, mother, peasant? Maria is the result of one year’s work documenting the lives of the inhabitants of my home village. Collected materials: recordings, conversations, and notes were used to create a biography of Maria, a fictional heroine who, sensing the impending threat, joins the uprising. The story suspended in an unspecified place and time is an attempt to supplement the history of Łukowica with a biography of a peasant who opposes the conformism in her immediate environment, decides to fight for a better future and in the name of this fight, leaves her children.
BIO / IWONA OGRODZKA was born in 1991. She lives and works in Wrocław, Poland. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland. In the academic year of 2013/14, she was on a scholarship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vilnius. She’s also a PhD candidate at the Doctoral School of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. She works in the field of new media art, installation, and painting. As of now, she works as the curator at the MD_S Gallery in Wroclaw (2015-2016) and is a co-founder and a member of an art collective Wykwitex. Since 2019, she’s been a member of the WHY QUIT initiative.
Maria was produced with support from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
Video & Text / Iwona Ogrodzka
