Projects - A Quick View
The term "refrigerator mother" was coined by Austrian psychiatrist Leo Kanner in the 1940s to describe a mother whose cold, uncaring style so traumatized her child that they retreated into autism. The concept caused enormous pain for many families for decades before it was debunked.
The fire lasted into the next day. The sun was obscured by the smoke of books, and all over the town sheets of burned paper, fragile pages of grey ash, floated down like a dirty black snow. Catching a page you could feel its heat, and for a moment read a fragment of text in a strange kind of black and grey negative, until, as the heat dissipated, the page melted to dust in your hand.
Culture is an immaterial essence that defines who we are - for ourselves and for others. When I think of culture, I think of books as the highest interpretation of "culture." But because of my life experiences and my prior education (Holocaust studies), I tend to analyse the ways of destruction. Books are windows through which the author's soul looks. The written word is the most important invention of humanity. "Drops of ink flow through the veins of culture" (Jan Parandowski).
A new project that will explore epigenetics - the study of heritable phenotype changes that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. New research shows that genetic changes stemming from the trauma suffered by Holocaust survivors can be passed on to their children (Yehuda, R. 2018).
The doors clanked shut. We had fallen into the trap, up to our necks. The doors were nailed, the way back irrevocably cut off. The world had become a hermetically sealed cattle car.
ELIE WIESEL The Night
How does one thank God? Why thank him? I had not been able to understand for a long time what in world God had done to deserve man.
ELIE WIESEL The Day
Although not fully autobiographical, the project explores complex and ever shifting identities and the artist’s quest for an authentic and personal truth. When Liszka and her husband discover his Jewish identity (hidden from him at birth) they embark on a journey through the archive, through stories and through poetry, seeking to reconcile and embrace an aspect of the family’s heritage that had been lost.
Stained body. A body that was cut, bruised, complicated.
Fluid and mobile.
Trying to keep head in the air so I could breathe.
Forming itself to the shape of the container that traps it.
I was contained water.
My spirit, like oil cut into water.
Disconnected.
Yearning for connection
And wholeness.
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Oil Painting, Part of Inherited Trauma Project 2021-23
Collaboration with artist Damian Bagiński
