Event
3.07.2019

Paulina - a performance by Michelle Levy & Patrycja Dołowy

Dwie siedzące kobiety ubrane w czarne sukienki.
fot. Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich

Paulina is a research and performance project based on the discovery of a 1945 Holocaust testimony of a Jewish woman from Kraków, and on a growing exchange between artists Michelle Levy (US) and Patrycja Dołowy (PL). 

3 July (Wednesday), 7PM, free admission

When Michelle asked Patrycja to translate the testimony of her ancestor, Paulina, little did they know the roles they would play in a web of events that had been unfolding over decades. 

Paulina’s testimony - of a woman who lost her family and fended for herself throughout occupied Poland-- is an official, impersonal record. It is impossible to really know the woman behind the text. Brought together by this compelling document which had, as it turns out, been given to Michelle in error, the artists have taken deep responsibility for this unearthed story of a woman who can no longer speak for herself. Guided by happenstance and the reminder that things are not always as they seem, they have been following Paulina’s traces throughout Poland and Ukraine, exploring what happens when one testimony, from thousands, is revisited, in-depth, in the places where it happened. They have some extraordinary tales to tell...

Event in Polish and English

About the artists:
 
Michelle Levy is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural organizer from Brooklyn, NY. She conveys narrative through a framework of “search” and “research,” presenting performances, imagery, narrative, and ritual, to investigate the mediated spaces where identity is constructed. From October 2018 through June 2019, she has been based in Warsaw to conduct research for the ongoing project, PAULINA, in cooperation with POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, and with Polish artist and writer, Patrycja Dołowy.
 
Patrycja Dolowy is an artist and writer based in Warsaw, Poland. As an author of written text and live theater, her work has focused on the problems of memory and Jewish heritage. She bases her projects on oral history and testimonies, interviewing witnesses to history and their descendants. Her book, from interviews with child-survivors of the Holocaust, “Wrócę, Gdy Będziesz Spała: Rozmowy z dziećmi Holocaustu,” was released by Czarne Press on March 27, 2019.

 

Partners of the project:

  • US Embassy, Warsaw
  • Asylum Arts
  • POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
  • Jewish Historical Institute
  • Brooklyn Arts Council
  • FestivALT