During her one-month stay in the capital of Lower Silesia, the artist studied the history and past of three buildings located in the city centre. The effects of her visit are the sound records, consisting of sounds of everyday life, successively determined by the functions that these buildings have performed over the centuries. The selected locations are characterized by a diverse and multifaceted historical identity of Wrocław.
The collected sound material can be reconstructed by going for a walk to the Romanesque House ( former the House of the Ladies of Trzebnica and now the FOTO – GEN Gallery), Monopol Hotel and Oppenheim House. The compositions are available in any location and can be played back using the phone and applications for reading QR codes.
The artist’s audio records are also available online at: www.poglosywroclawia.pl
MONOPOL HOTEL, Heleny Modrzejewskiej Street 2
The recording features the voice of Zbigniew Cybulski from the 1958 film “Ashes and Diamonds”, which was partially shot in a hotel, and Marlena Dietrich from the 1961 film “Sentence in Nuremberg”. In the 1960s, two excellent actors met at the Monopol Hotel. Both works are connected with the theme of World War II and the period after it – they describe two different and tragic post-war perspectives of the German and Polish nations.
The composition consists of voices recorded while cleaning hotel rooms and sounds of kitchen machines. These sounds are inaudible to hotel guests every day, but at the same time prove the daily work of many people, thanks to which this place can continue to function for over a century.
Recording: www.poglosywroclawia.pl/miejsca/monopol/
OP ENHEIM HOUSE, Solny Square 4
The tenement house witnessed many events that took place in Solny Square – one of the most traumatic was the burning of 41 people of Jewish origin in the 15th century. Building survived the Second World War almost unharmed. It was purchased in 2013 and has been owned since then by OP ENHEIM, the european public benefit purpose company.
The sound composition refers to an audiosphere of intimate sounds and space absent in this building today, especially in the family home. Rabbi David Basok took part in the recording.
Recording: www.poglosywroclawia.pl/miejsca/oppenheim/
ROMANESQUE HOUSE ( House of the Ladies of Trzebnica), Nankiera Square 8
The Wrocław residence for the superiors of the Cistercian Order from Trzebnica was founded by Princess Jadwiga in the 13th century. For six centuries it was used by the Cistercians until the dissolution of the Order at the beginning of the 19th century.
As time passed, the level of land in the city increased so that in the nineteenth century a four-storey tenement house was erected on the site of the landed manor house of the Trzebnica nuns, with a restaurant and shops on the ground floor and rental apartments on the floors. In the 1960s, under the ruins of the tenement house, a Romanesque-Gothic construction of the building was found, which was then excavated and restored, and incorporated into the body of new residential buildings. Since the 1970s it has served as a gallery, which in the 1980s became a centre of counter-cultural activities.
In the composition was used the recording of the music group: Kormorany. The band gave concerts in the gallery space in the 80s. It was a special kind of artistic action – the musicians lived in the gallery for over a week, their everyday life and concerts could be observed through a glasses windows.
Recording: www.poglosywroclawia.pl/miejsca/domek_romance/
Project organized by OP ENHEIM as a part of the Competition for NGOs conducted by AIR Wro.
