“We are growing stronger every year”
The four-day Polish Arts Festival (PAF) returned in Limerick City for the 17th year last night in the Limerick Art Gallery, exhibiting artist Olga Anacka’s newest work ‘Patching Femininity’.
The Event marked the opening of the Festival
The bilingual festival comes to Limerick each year to celebrate the Polish community in Ireland through music, art, dance and culture. It is the only festival of its kind in Ireland.
The organisation works with the local diverse communities (Polish, Ukrainian) and showcases the talent that lies within the community. The festival brings new audiences to venues that they might have never visited before.
The CEO and artistic director of the PAF, Justyna Cwojdzińska, welcomed everyone to the gallery last night “We are growing stronger every year”, she exclaimed.
Limerick Councillor, Elena Secas, also spoke at the event, touching on the importance of the festival. “It is an honour to stand before you today as we celebrate (…) Polish culture and its beautiful integration with the vibrant artistic community of women over technical Polish people calling in their home”.
The Exhibition ‘Patching femininity’.
Exhibition ‘Patching femininity’; picture by Anne Marie Roberts
The conceptual artist, Olga Anacka, explores the complexities and visual representations of femininity through her new exhibition. Her work comprises of twelve embroidered tapestries, with images from the artist’s personal memories with symbolic representations of the feminine drawn from commonplace stereotypes. Associate Artistic Director of the PAF, Aleksandra Rosiak commented on the artwork, “It really challenges us to think twice of (…) why certain parts of the body are not cherished”.
“Fabrics used for this project were donated by my friends or even women whom I could meet in the fabric shop”, recounted the artist. She also pointed out, that for her the project exceeds the exhibition, as she is offering workshops over the next coming days in the Polish language, to gather the community together.
Live performance of ‘Glór na Bogini’
The opening event ended with the first live performance of “Glór na Bogini”, a song by the artists JaYne and Dora Gola. JaYne is an Irish singer who studied in Dublin. Dora Gola was born in Poland and emigrated to Ireland as a teenager. They were introduced to each other by Cwojdzińska and tasked to write the song for the PAF. It was “a beautiful experience and I really appreciate it”, said Dora Gola at the event.
The song is written in Polish, English and Irish. “Glór na Bogini” translates to “Voice of the Goddess”. The title uses the Irish word for language “Glór” and the Polish word for goddess “Bogini”.
Polish Community in Ireland
Poland joined the European Union more than 20 years ago, in May 2004. Polish is the third most spoken language in Ireland, after English and Irish.
The festival will continue over the weekend with exciting events such as workshops, interactive music sessions and panel discussions.
The full programme of events and tickets are available on the PAF website.