Maya Gordon Goes To Chorzów 
- You're living in a bubble, Maja. - Well, I know I'm living in a bubble. And I thought the bubble would finally burst, but it somehow doesn't want to. - But you don't really want it to burst. - I very much want it to burst. - You don't. - ... - I'm trying to confront you with reality, trying to make you... feel pain somewhere in yourself. - But I'm feeling pain already. - We never reach the place that's really painful, and nothing fucking changes, you know. I don't want to be making this film just for the sake of making it, I want to make it for something to happen. - Well, okay, but you see that nothing happens. - ... - I don't know, I don't understand it myself, I'm trying to understand it. I'm trying to relieve myself. That's why I came here. - I don't know... You think you can prick this bubble with Poland?' - I'm trying to very hard. I don't know whether it'll work. But one of the things of my following, you know, my own traces is to leave it all behind me. But I don't know whether I can do it at all, perhaps I can't live without it.
A video work documenting 58-year old Maja Gordon's trip to Poland, to her birth city of Chorzów, a trip in the search of past places, people and events. This is, however, not a film about the past but rather an attempt to cover the past with the present which appears far more important. The film is the cause of the event, it is in itself a return, a confrontation with Poland and with oneself. Memory turns out to be but a pretext for consciously constructing one's present identity. The adventure ends in a failure, and the film documents that failure. Despite her repeated declarations of working on herself, Maja Gordon neither finds her home nor touches her true self. Magda Pustoła
Why The idea for 'Maja Gordon goes to Chorzow came as the result of exhaustion. Exhaustion with the way the history of Polish-Jewish relations is regarded, also the way contemporary relations between Jews and Poles are understood. Trips from Israel coming to Poland have their set routine - death camps, ruined pre-war streets and souvenirs. Films about the Holocaust, Klezmer, the Jewish Cultural Festival - this is all needed, but has started turning against the fundamental issue, which are real, living contacts between people. This is why this film is an attempt to 'eclipse' the past with the present, which to author of the film seems much more important. Memory in this film is merely a pretext for the adventure, which is a trip to Silesia, to the place Maya was born. The Polish train, the hotel, the arguments, conversations and tensions between Maja and her travelling companion Rayka form the real content of the film. The memory of the forced emmigration, the trauma that accompanied it and the sadness of being uprooted seem only a backdrop, real but distant. What Maja Gordon left Poland in 1957, eleven years before the mass exodus of Polish Jews. She was ten. She lives in Amsterdam. She never learned to speak Dutch very well. She speaks Hebrew, Polish and English. She's an artist but she works little. She celebrates life, lives in a huge, beautiful studio in the center of Amsterdam, she takes care of friends dying from AIDS, she prepares Jewish and Catholic holidays for her friends. She cooks, and how. She talks on the phone, mainly in Hebrew. She says of herself: I am a food processor. Among her closest friends are some Polish artists. It seems that Poland for her is first and foremost a country where one can really feel and understand oneself, and also return to a creative life. The film 'Maya Gordon goes to Chorzow' is also the story of the strange relationship connecting two women, Maya Gordon and Joanna Rajkowska. Maya Gordon decides to return to Poland and make the trip to her birthplace - to Silesia, to Chorzow and then to the town of her early childhood - to Gliwice. It's the first trip to Silesia since her emmigration in 1957 and also a return, which may help her finally make the decision about living in Poland for longer. For the film, Maya rented an apartment in Warsaw and stayed in Poland for several months. It's a very important narrative thread - Maya returns, to make a film about herself - about her own return.
curator project written and directed by camera editing assistant editor sound english translation production manager production assistant produced with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage co -financed by the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle producer © Eureka Media 2006
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| Leave it by Magda Pustoła |
| Art of Public Possibility. Joanna Rajkowska in Conversation with Artur Żmijewski |
| Milliodimensional Reality,Joanna Rajkowska talks toMagda Pustoła |
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