Symphony of the Ursus Factory
directed by Jaśmina Wójcik, Poland 2018, 60'
The Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art happily invites to a screening of the film Symphony of the Ursus Factory directed by Jaśmina Wójcik as well as the premiere of the book Sztuka ze społecznością (Art With The Community), edited by Jaśmina Wójcik, Igor Stokfiszewski, and Izabela Jasińska, which is an anthology of statements from leading practitioners of artistic activities focused on cooperating with local communities.
The Symphony of the Ursus Factory – directed by Jaśmina Wójcik – is based on participatory activities with the former employees of a closed tractor factory located in the Warsaw district of Ursus, which the artist along with her team have been realizing since 2011 and whose effects have been presented, amongst others, at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art within the frames of the exhibition Gotong Royong. Things we do together. The Ursus Factory was one of the largest tractor production plants in Europe. For nearly the entire twentieth century, it was the pride of Polish industry. The fall of communism commenced the beginning of its end. Today, these halls stand empty or are falling into disrepair. Tens of thousands of the biographies of the people who worked there have been thrown into the dustbin of history. The artists invited the factory's former employees—workers, technologists, managers, secretaries—to participate in an experimental documentary film that would revive the factory once again. Its former employees are using their body's memory as well as sounds to recreate one day of work at the plant. This is how the Symphony of the Ursus Factory is born, consisting of choreography created from the activities of workers, technical, administrative and management staff, which is accompanied by their phonosphere reconstruction of heavy industry.
The Symphony is accompanied by something else: the almost forgotten values related to the industrial era – the workers' community, solidarity, work ethos. The revival of the factory sets in motion tractors scattered throughout Poland that were made by the hands of the Ursus workers. Moved by the energy of memory, the machines come to the place where they were born, to pay homage to their builders—the employees of the Ursus Factory. Its buildings will disappear, but Ursus' tractors and workers will always remain part of its genius loci.
The Symphony of the Ursus Factory is a creative documentary, introducing the method of participative art as well as art with the community into the film. This is also a film that combines video art with choreography and experimental music. Above all, however, this film is a voice commemorating the Ursus Factory, industrial and workers' culture, fighting for the dignity of working people as well as for a historical account taking into consideration their biographies.
