First day of Summer School in Krasnogruda
“Small World Centers” is an initiative where we invited people who see their work like we do—those who connect social and artistic work with place, who don’t leave but stay. They came to us from Ukraine, Lithuania, and Georgia. Young people from Sejny welcomed them with a theatrical performance called Sejny Chronicles and shared the story of their work preserving the town’s memory.
The first day of the visit began in studios run by Bożena Szroeder. First, a visit to the “Borderland Shop”: a place where you can find the most beautiful works by local artists, forming a living, constantly changing collection. Right next door, just behind the door, is an animation studio where over 100 animated films have been created, telling the history of the town, its inhabitants, and its legends. We listened to stories spanning more than 30 years of work with children and youth: about ideas, initiatives, and the responsibility to tell the story, to honor the place, and the people who live there. We also saw Małgorzata Dmitruk’s exhibition “The Crossing”, which we will be presenting all summer at the Borderland House.
After lunch, Wiesław Szumiński, within the walls of the White Synagogue, recounted the story of Sejny’s Jewish community. We listened between the walls inscribed with the names of all those who once belonged to the town and whose lives were brutally cut short.
In the evening, there was Cafe Europa: a pop-up literary café, this time filled with poetry in Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Georgian. That evening, we especially remembered two people who should have been there in the Café Song of Porcelain, and whom we can now only recall by reading their poems: Maksym Kryvtsov and Viktoria Amelina.
Two more days of working together lie ahead.
