Greetings from the Village is a series of postcards – collages showing the real life in the Polish countryside. Real, meaning tough and messy (but with humor) – Nike shoes stuck in mud, dogs chained up, or animals being slaughtered in front of children, reminiscent of scenes from Ewa Borzęcka’s film Arizona. This is the village, not the idyllic green landscapes you find on Google. The postcards feature collages I created from photos taken in my hometown, Trzcianka, a small village in Świętokrzyskie near Sandomierz. Each one tells a story from my childhood, highlighting daily struggles that, while normal for village life, reveal deeper issues of rural Poland. I chose the postcard format because it’s typically associated with beautiful vacation spots. So why not send postcards from the Polish countryside? Let them tell their own stories. The series also includes a short video portraying life in Trzcianka.
Today, when we send postcards only occasionally, most often from exotic, sun-lit places, from the magic lands of brightness and happiness, Angelika Gad goes against the grain. She sends us love from forgotten, increasingly abandoned countryside. She tells us about it, juxtaposing memories with everyday life, simultaneously provoking viewers to perform a specific gesture: Why won’t you send a postcard? To yourself and to the countryside, to a village. Your own – brought out from oblivion, the visited, or even the imagined one. Why wouldn’t you send love to yourself, your memories, and perceptions, or to the countryside viewed with all its imperfections? Send postcards with love and let them reach the furthest places in the world.
Part of the curatorial text by Agnieszka Sadowska
Greetings from the village
My childhood memories are filled with mud and pig's blood. For every big occasion—holidays, birthdays, weddings—my father would kill a pig. We raised them in a barn, with piglets separated from the adults. When a pig was big enough, it met its end. My father would hang it by its hooves in the garage, then clean and prepare the meat. He always called me to taste the cooked grain meant for blood sausage. I loved it, but one year I learned at school that blood sausage was made with pig’s blood. That was the year I stopped tasting the grain (…)
Peaceful, cheerful village life, with dogs chained up and no one calling their names
I was about five when my cousin threw a rock at my dog, Scrooge. Scrooge broke free and bit him. After that, everyone said my dog was aggressive. But how could he not be, chained to his doghouse his entire life, and then a kid throws a rock at him? In the village, it was normal: a dog on a chain, guarding its post. That’s how I saw it too—just a kid, taught not to approach the dog because he might bite.
After Scrooge died, we got another dog, Murzyn. He was small, curly, and black, always barking happily when I came near. I thought "Murzyn" was a typical dog name, but school taught me otherwise. Then came Brutek, the first dog I could actually play with, though he too eventually ended up chained.
When Brutek passed, we got Medor, whom I called Zordon. He was a little wolf, growing fast. I remember seeing sadness in his eyes when he was first put on the chain. I took a photo, and it broke my heart. He became the first dog we let roam free, and after that, we hid the chains. Some people in the village followed suit, but not all. Some dogs still stand, chained by their doghouses, howling at the moon for freedom.
Fish and women have no voice
In the village, women always worked. Always. If they sat down, it was to peel potatoes. My mother didn’t have a formal job; she managed the home, the farm, and worked in the fields. Her day was dictated by the animals, the seasons, my father (when he was hungry), and me (when I was hungry). She never complained, and neither did other women. If they did, it was in silence, hidden from the men. Women simply accepted, saying, "That’s how it is, what can I do?".
I remember women with black eyes who are still in their "happy" marriages today. When I wanted to join the Black Protests (All-Poland Women's Strike launched a protest movement branded "Black Protest"), there was some initial interest, but it faded quickly. Yet, some women went—and that’s good. Slowly, things are changing. Village women are beginning to show they have a voice. Thanks to Agnieszka Pajączkowska's work, Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak’s "Chłopki," and even the film "Chłopi," there’s now a growing dialogue about the state of the countryside and women’s issues.
The Vitruvian Man
In Trzcianka, the village where I grew up, there was one store. From the age of six, I went there for groceries, sometimes with a bag bigger than me. There were always men sitting outside, drinking wine. They were kind and had become part of the landscape, like spring flowers.
I remember one day, one of the men started choking—it turned out there was a mouse in his wine bottle. Today, the store is gone, and the men no longer sit on the bench. But they’ve found a new place.
Years later, Angelika Gad returns to her home village Trzcianka, in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, to her own perceptions and ideas about it, to her memories – those good and those bad. And this is a special return, because it involves a place where she spent her first nineteen years, and thus her entire childhood and adolescence. This is a half-nostalgic and tender and half-bitter and saddening return. Because the artist confronts myths with reality, and the images encoded in her memory with what she finds in the village today. And those observations can be really painful.
Part of the curatorial text by Agnieszka Sadowska
Curatorial text by Agnieszka Sadowska