In the montagefilm Decembers – narrating history, images from an official history from Gdansk, discarded archival material and a constructed narrative based on true stories told by women are juxtaposed. The work centres on two protests that happened in December – one in 1970 and the other in 1981. The first was brutally put down by the Polish People’s Army and the Citizen’s Militia, at least 42 people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded, the latter began a period of martial law. Both incidents are well known, documented in thousands of photos where it is possible to see the ensuing street fights. The montagefilm shines a light on the discarded stories of everyday life and emphasizes their role in the fabric of history. The work is an attempt to make the private stories of those events more prominent, to complete the official image of history. The film is made of archival images from the archive of the European Center for Solidarity in Gdansk.
The project is commisioned by Agniezska Kulasinska for Laznia – Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk, and developed in partnership with the European Center for Solidarity, Gdansk.
The project is supported by The Danish Arts Council, The Danish Cultural Institute in Warsaw and the Danish Consulate in Gdansk.
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