Dr Ula Chowaniec (Impacts of Gender Discourse Series)

Transnational Homosexuals in Communist Poland: Cross-Borders Flaws in Gay and Lesbian Magazines. Pelgrave, London 2017.

The Myths, the Archives and the Impact of Community Makings

Łukasz Szulc’s Transnational Homosexuals in Communist Poland is not only about Poland and not only about Communism. It is a carefully executed study on the gay and lesbian movement in the so-called Eastern Bloc, it is a thought-provoking analysis of somehow mythical thinking of what is the “East,” and what kind of myths of the Central and Eastern Europe are particularly harmful, such as the myth of homogeneity; myth of the essence of the region; the teleological myth of good transition from communism into better kind of democracy and the right kind of ethics. Łukasz Szulc discussed all the just mentioned myths as based on one, more general myth of separation of the CEE countries from the West. Łukasz deconstructs those myths taking into account the stories of the emerging queer culture. This book is also an interesting debate on what “queer” means today and how it shapes our global identity and how those identities are used in geopolitical discourses, directly linked to the actual political decisions. The book actually starts with claiming that “we live in the age of ‘queer wars’”, where the issues of body politics, namely position on abortion, divorce and homosexuality divide the countries and people.

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Dr Ula Chowaniec (Impacts of Gender Discourse Series)

The LGBT History Month, February is almost over, but it is never too late to talk about equality, justice and LGBT issues, especially in regions such as Eastern and Central Europe, where many issues, like same-sex marriage, are still to fight for. This text is based on my Lunch Hour Open Lecture,  that I delivered at UCL on the 5^th of December, 2017 (See below).

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Starting from the century of Polish women’s movement, and the LGBTQ politics to Polish art in London and Brexit.

Dr Urszula Chowaniec, Senior Teaching Fellow in Polish Language (Impacts of Gender Discourse Series)

Emancipation now seems to be in a backlash. In October, Polish women again demonstrated  to commemorate October 2016, when the whole of Poland was dressed in black; when thousands of Polish women and men demonstrated against a proposal to radicalize already one of the most radical abortion laws in Europe. This was also part of the London story; many Polish women also honoured October 2016 a few weeks ago in front of Polish Embassy. The story of women’s emancipation, gender politics and migration was a leading theme of many SSEES’ seminars and talks. Let’s recall some facts….

When I start my Polish classes, I ask my students about any Polish people; Copernicus, Fryderyk Chopin, Lech Wałęsa… Women hardly ever appear in the list, so I mention, usually to my students’ surprise, Marie Curie. (more…)

Oskar OK Krajewski, Polish Artist in London, on art, recycling, and migration

Dr Urszula Chowaniec, Senior Teaching Fellow in Polish Language

Thousands of small objects… hundreds of fragments linked together in a seemingly random way create an ideal shape; a colourful space  interlaced with light and flickering glimpses, as if just for this sculptured form all the tiny items were intended. Was it only by accident or misunderstanding that they used to be a piece of computer, toy, or TV remote? They really meant to be Recycled Future.

Recycled Future is Oskar OK Krajewski’s centre sculpture presented during his exhibition at Oxo show (1-5 November, 2017). It is an amazing piece made of over 25,000 parts of old broken everyday objects. As a central piece, the whole exhibition is called Recycled Future. OK admits that this piece is representative to all his recent artworks. It took Oskar about 5 years to complete the whole show. He never works on one project at the time, rather he distracts himself over many works, and therefore it gets slower to complete the piece. But this is how ‘OK’ creates.

Recycled Future by Oskar OK Krajewski

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