Maria, 2019

What does it really mean to look after your family? And when is the right time to start a revolution? Is it possible to take such risks when you are a woman, mother, peasant? Maria is the result of a year’s work documenting the lives of the inhabitants of the artist’s home village. The collected materials – recordings, conversations, notes – were used to create the story of Maria, a fictional heroine who, sensing the imminent threat, joins the uprising. Set in an unspecified place and time, the story is an attempt to supplement the history of Łukowica with the biography of a woman who opposes the prevalent conformism in her immediate surroundings, decides to fight for a better future and, to do so, abandons her children.

Video created under the scholarship programme of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for 2019.

photo: Małgorzata Kujda