Arts Lab 7.0: Oliwia Mieczkowska | Month III

This month went by SO quickly, and I feel like the only thing we did was the Play and the Residency. So here is my report on those:

Personal Artwork - Photos of the cemetery

At first, I didn’t know what to do as a personal artwork. I had the feeling that I didn’t know enough to talk about such a sensitive topic. I thought I might do a collage and combine all the information I could possibly get. I went to the Jewish cemetery and took a lot of beautiful photos. I tried to design the collage and add my own drawings to it. But as I tried to work digitally and not with real cutouts like I normally did, I got demotivated as I didn’t have the vision anymore. In the end, I left the whole collage idea and just exhibited the slightly edited photos of the cemetery. It was due to the little time we had, because I was also super excited to participate in the play.

It felt confusing to start on the work without much information. It felt disrespectful. It felt ignorant. But we didn’t have enough time, so this was the only thing that was left to do. But I think the pictures turned out beautiful, and I really liked that I decided to still exhibit them.

I learned that it's okay to switch plans completely, not even halfway through. It’s sad to work a lot for something that you ditch, but I just keep it as a learning experience. In the future, I would do the same. It was great to have something I did on my own and what I can call MY work next to the group project. I would maybe think of a more engaging interactive part, as I had just come up with one on the spot. I wasn’t sure if I should show the pictures and the thought of an interactive part didn’t cross my mind anymore.

Play

I wasn’t sure if I should participate in the play at the beginning. I wasn’t sure if I would be comfortable playing on a stage again. But I convinced myself after talking about my experiences in the theater and how much fun it was in the moment. I just had to jump over my shadow and get comfortable around the others.

We practiced A LOT, we talked A LOT, we spent SO much time in the ice-cold hub and I even got sick because of it. It was different than the experience I had before, as we didn’t have a perfectly finished script. It was a concept we had to figure out during the process and that took time and patience. I only did the acting part of the play. Sure, I threw in my opinions here and there to try to make it better, but I didn’t put in as much work as the others. We had people working on the stenography, being directions, the main writers, doing music, making light, and, of course, the actors. Everyone had a specific role that they tried to fulfill. It was such a nice experience to see everyone so motivated to do a group project. It was so nice to work with as many people and spend so much time with them. I got to know them a lot better and our friendship grew even stronger. For most of the time, I stayed very chill about the whole situation. I tried to enjoy the situation, the process, the moment. But with the stress and the exhibition date coming closer, there was a lot of tension between the whole group. Everyone was exhausted as we had been working too much and sleeping too little. But in the end, we finished it. We presented an AMAZING play and I think everyone enjoyed the final product.

After everything, I feel so proud of us. Proud for pushing through and proud of the final product. I loved the process, even though it had some tough moments. I love the whole play and I love the experience it brought me. I hated the lack of sleep, the coldness, the lack of normal and healthy food due to lack of time, and I hated the arguments. But overall, the positive feelings have made it worth it (except getting sick, obviously).

I found out how people can plan an entire play from scratch. It was amazing to see it develop and get better. I also found out how stressful it is to work as a team for the first time. We had to figure so much stuff out at the same time, but we still managed. I also learned how people operate in stressful situations. I got to know all of them a lot better, even the sights they may not want to show.

In the future we will probably not do another big project like this. It was too stressful and too time-consuming. But it will always be nice to look back at it! And I don't regret a single second of it.

Residency

When we planned the residency, I thought about doing a short movie, in black and white, without dialogues, only music and showing emotions through body and expressions. Loay and I went to middle school and tried to get to know them at first. We tried to play a lot of games and then, during the following days, focus more and more on the topic of Jemom and then start with the movie. But it turned out differently. It was very hard to get them involved, get them interested, make them understand the seriousness of the topic. They did not want to listen. They did not want to play anything. They didn’t even want to be there. But we still had to try and work with it. It was so hard. We only filmed during the last two days, as we lost one day due to lack of space in our normal classroom and spontaneously decided to go to the Jewish cemetery with them to see it in real life, not only in documentaries and pictures. We had to improvise a lot and adapt as the students had a lot of mood swings, and it was impossible to plan ahead. Overall, it was not a very productive nor enjoyable experience. Even after a discussion with the whole house and Mihaela and Mircea, nobody could say something we haven’t tried or something that could possibly help. It was very sad as we got demotivated, and it could probably show in our product and enthusiasm.

I felt very uncomfortable through the whole process. The teenagers made me so unmotivated, but at the same time, some of them were so nice to me in the breaks and before and after, but not during the process at all. It was all so confusing. I felt left alone as our complaints were not taken seriously. They said it's normal, it's not that bad, or that we will figure it out. It was said in moments, where I was desperate for advice and completely lost and helpless. It was awful to not get any help whatsoever emotionally and also not in action in the school. I think it was obvious that we lost the joy midway and that we would distract ourselves with the play to at least use our time efficiently there.

I found out how annoying teenagers are. How hard it is to work with them. How we probably need some sort of training if we have to work with problematic kids and no one knows how to react correctly to situations of bullying or similar. It was all huge improvisation and trying to get the time to pass by, which is not the point of the project, the residency and also not what we want as volunteers. But I guess that’s what you have to do. I learned that you can not always save the situation and make everything better. Sometimes you just have to get it over with.

For the future, I honestly wouldn't know how to improve the situation. I would love to do something more practical and physical as it shows a physical result and is much easier to control in the moment, when students are sitting down and have a specific task to do. I would insist on having a person of authority at all times to control the situation and take care of serious topics like bullying. Other than that, I think the topic was also a hard one and the school itself. But for next time, the topic as well as the school will change anyway.

House/personal Situation

I turned 20 last month, and it was the first time I hadn’t got to spend it with my close family. It was weird, but I had so many people around me to get me distracted. I have still gotten very homesick in the last few weeks, and I’m very excited to go back home next week for Christmas!

In the house, we did are doing secret Santa, and we have little envelopes where we can leave each other some letters, notes or other little gifts. I think this is the cuteest thing ever. I love writing notes and making other people smile and feel loved. And I have already got so many cute notes from various people and I love every single one of them!

Because we all worked very hard on our personal artwork, barely got any sleep and didn’t take care of ourselves very well, the house situation was very tense. People got into a lot of fights & barely talked to each other. But I think it was necessary to give each other space and not get on each other's nerves in our private time. It was sad to see, of course, but living with so many people in a house, you can not really avoid these types of situations. We just have to learn from them and respect each other's needs to make this work in the future. And with the winter vacation starting next week, I think it will be good for everyone to do some traveling on their own and spend some time apart from each other to come back fresh and ready to spend the second half of the project together!

This monthly report was written by Oliwia Mieczkowska, our Polish/German volunteer taking part in a seven-month Arts Lab 7.0 mobility, co-funded by the European Union under the European Solidarity Corps.