Grzegorz Klaman
A Subjective Bus Line
Genk
30 May–30 September 2012
Departures: Fri and Sat, 12.30 and 15
Additional departures during the opening weekend of Manifesta 9: Thu 31 May at 15, Fri 1 June at 14.30, Sat 2 June–Sun 3 June at 13 and 15
Reservations: T 003211603019 / info [at] hetvervolg.org
www.flacc.info
Gdansk
30 May–30 September 2012
Departures: Tue–Sun, 12 and 14
Reservations: T 0048 512 055 176 / sla [at] wyspa.art.pl
www.wyspa.art.pl
This summer, FLACC in Genk and the Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdansk come together as partners for A Subjective Bus Line, a project by the visual artist Grzegorz Klaman. A Subjective Bus Line in the Belgian former mining city of Genk will run during Manifesta 9. Simultaneously, a Line will be held on the grounds of the former Gdansk Shipyard in Poland during Alternativa. Both the Genk mining sites and Gdansk Shipyard are undergoing transformation and are reservoirs of collective and individual memory. Gdansk Shipyard is carrying the legacy of the Solidarnosc Movement, while the Limburg mines have a complex history involving migrant workers and a profound influence on the city and surrounding landscape. Their official history is visualised in the shape of diverse forms of commemoration. The Line is an answer to the urgency to embrace hidden voices that have never become a central narrative. The project gives a unique insight into the premises of these historically loaded industrial sites.
A Subjective Bus Line started in 2002 on the grounds of the former Gdansk Shipyard, adding the personal stories of former shipyard workers to the official history of the shipyard and the Solidarity movement. The project has the form of a regular guided bus tour, but the guides are people who give not professionalised but deeply private insights, which encourage immediate responses. The focus in both locations is not on the big historical events or remaining historical sites but on the personal stories of the former workers. It will add layers to the official history of Genk and Gdansk. The Subjective Bus Line project brings together witnesses and participants in history, those less well known but equally important. The project aims to extract the muted voice, the echo, impressions, whispers, fragments of reminiscences, and accounts, and to write them into the current situation and the space of the place.
As Kuba Szreder wrote about the project, “Grzegorz Klaman consciously broadened and split open the crack between the history of the victors, publicly celebrated as myths of the official shipyard history, and the personal tales of former shipyard workers or rather polyphonic histories consigned to the abysses of privacy, deleted for being fluid, subjective, unclear. Official History avoided the daily lives of the same workers whose mythical phantasms were celebrated during anniversary rituals. Their individual fates only deserved a lack of mention or reportage about the burdensome fate of the victims of transformation. Paraphrasing the scathing words of Godard, we are dealing here with an interesting case, where the same group of people in the space of just one decade is first elevated in an epic form and then only deserves a document.”
The bus tour in Genk starts at the former mine building of Waterschei, now the Manifesta 9 venue, and takes two hours. The tour includes several important mine sites, such as the Cités (residential garden city), slag heaps, and industrial sites. The tours in Genk can be booked in the following languages: English, Flemish, Polish, and Slovenian.
The tours in Gdansk start by the stop behind historic gate no. 2. The Gdansk tours can be booked in Polish, English, and German.
A Subjective Bus Linein Genk is a project by Grzegorz Klaman and FLACC and partnered by Het Vervolg Vzw / Coal Face (BE), Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdansk (PL) in conjunction with Alternativa International Visual Arts Festival in Gdansk and with support of Meta VZW. Meta is the Flemish heritage organisation for vintage tramcars and buses.
A Subjective Bus Line in Gdansk is a project partnered by the City of Gdansk and supported by Gdansk Shipyard, Baltic Property Trust, and Drewnica Development.
*Image above:
Subjective Bus Line stop in Gdansk Shipyard. Photo courtesy Michał Szlaga.
