The W/E LAB Residency (West-East Laboratory) is a year-long project for visual artists that inaugurates a residency programme at the FLOWLAND farm in Tarczyn. In cooperation with local partners, we have prepared two one-month residency stays for six artists of Polish, German or Ukrainian origin from Lower Silesia and Saxony.
The W/E LAB Residency in Tarczyn is addressed to artists under 35 years of age who in their creative practice raise themes such as memory, identity of place, including of Lower Silesia, Polish-German relations, transnationality and participatory art. The extremely rich history of the region, coupled with the intersecting cultural, national and social threads, will be the starting point for artistic and research activities undertaken during the residency. For the local community, identity and the memory of repatriation are important topics, and although they haven't been thoroughly explored yet, they are still mentioned in the privacy of the home. Traditions and customs, brought from the Eastern Borderlands by the resettled population, continue to have an important place in the collective memory, they are cultivated, nurtured and refreshed. What is forgotten, however, is the German history of places and traditions that are slowly dying out or being absorbed by the newcomers and younger generations.
During the W/E LAB Residency, the artists will spend almost a month exploring the local history, which will result in a post-residency artistic programme for audiences in Görlitz, Legnica, Wrocław and Tarczyn. It will be developed in collaboration with the curator.
The undertaken activities can make an important contribution to the archiving of the non-material culture of this unique area and become an important starting point for further cultural activities within German-Polish relations. They may raise the awareness of the history of the area, strengthen ties between people and help us work through some of the post-war topics.