Rediscovering Rural Poland Through Community Care

Field report by Anna Marjankowska

This August we visited the village Stara Huta in the Pomerania region in Poland to explore with the local community how a historical building could be turned into a cultural center. The visit happened after getting in touch with Agnieszka Zielke from the organisation Stowarzyszenie Perła Przywidza during a matchmaking event earlier this year. 

Representing East of Moon with me were Adam Świtała, and Dr Angela Snæfellsjökuls Rawlings:

Anna Marta Marjankowska is a labour and community organizer, cultural manager, and project coordinator, and brings to the project her organizing skills and tools for working with communities and mapping their needs, using innovation and resources to build long-term solutions and opportunities for the local community. She is responsible for inclusion and accessibility in the project development process.

Adam Świtała is a musician, composer, and education expert. He designs long-term music education programmes (Tónagull in Iceland); he works as an expert in creating national policies for music education in Poland, and teaches at the University of Iceland and the University of Akureyri, and publishes on education. In this project, he will help design a space for music education, concerts and participatory programs for the future cultural centre.

Dr Angela Snæfellsjökuls Rawlings brings to the project her sensibility to the natural environment, ecological education, rights of nature and regenerative practices. Having an external perspective, she observes relationships between members of a partner's community and their environment, local customs and traditions, bringing international art practices and curating art education programs for the future cultural centre.

We organised our time in gmina Przywidz to divide it to administrational work, developing ideas, and gathering data through conversations, walks, and mapping the environment of the future cultural centre: Institutions, cultural organisations, enterprises, local community leaders, meeting points (church, schools, wayside chapel), but also the natural environment.

It was very important for us to have assurance of cooperation from the local government - Mayor Włodzimierz Michalski, with whom we shared the willingness to build a long-term collaboration and innovation that will serve the local community.

Our part of the visit was a research and programme component. We walked the site, interviewed residents and local leaders, and began assembling a case study of how the initiative developed: A timeline, transcripts, and a mapping of the social, cultural and economic resources the group already draws on. That diagnosis is meant to be the basis for designing the future centre's functions. Alongside it, we worked on the education, art and music side. That means the acoustic behaviour of the rooms, what equipment a building like this needs, an instrument lending scheme for children, and a programme structure that has something for toddlers, teenagers and older residents rather than defaulting to one age group. 

Heritage-led community work in depopulating rural areas is a well-known pattern. What is unusual in Stara Huta is the order of events. Participatory methods and a report on prior community consultation are things the Culture Programme asks applicants to provide. Here the participation is not an exercise designed for a form; it is a practice that has been running for over a year, and now has to be written.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our amazing hosts - Stowarzyszenie Perła Przywidza, especially the main project organizers: Agnieszka Zielke and Anna Litwin, for introducing us to the incredible community project they are building, a community where everybody has an important role, is seen and welcomed. That was a rare and extremely valuable experience. 

Thanks to wonderful “Perełki” from Stowarzyszenie Perła Przywidza and Koło Gospodyń Wiejskich PerloveKGW ze Starej Huty, all the neighbours and friends that welcomed us so warmly, Łukasz Litwin (councillor of gmina Przywidz), Marcin Zielke (Stowarzyszenie Perła Przywidza), Włodzimierz Michalski (Wójt Gminy Przywidz, Mayor of the commune Przywidz), Karolina Szymikowska - Deputy Head of the Investment Department (zastępca kierownika Referatu Inwestycji), Urząd Gminy Przywidz, Martyna Bieszka - director, Biblioteka Publiczna w Przywidzu, Renata Kostuch - head teacher, Szkoła Podstawowa w Nowej Wsi Przywidzkiej, Piotr Krajewski - sołtys, Sołectwo Nowa Wieś Przywidzka; councillor of gmina Przywidz.

Institutions we have visited during our studio visit: Gminna Biblioteka Publiczna w Przywidzu, Szkoła Podstawowa w Nowej Wsi Przywidzkiej, Koło Gospodyń Wiejskich PerloveKGW ze Starej Huty, Parafia Matki Boskiej Fatimskiej w Nowej Wsi Przywidzkiej, Muzeum - Kaszubski Park Etnograficzny Wdzydze.