Dorota Ogrodzka

For a long time, I have been trying to write a book called FEMALE CULTURE WORKERS. It will explore the experiences of people who work in the arts and culture sector, their unspoken stories and, more broadly, the sector’s landscape. Sometimes I get up at five in the morning to take a few moments to write before I start my commitments for the day. For some time now, however, I have realised that this simply does not work and that it is impossible to do this on such an irregular basis. My reflections have also led me to write a chapter about the need to stop and the opportunity to discuss the regime of overproduction and the grind. It’s hard to write about pausing whilst simultaneously being in a rush. As part of the residency, I want to experience a pause and gather material for a chapter on how to… pause. How can we treat turning points, when we reach the wall of our own resilience, strength and hope, as possible defining moments to change the way we work and the way the whole arts and culture industry functions? I want to take a break, get my thoughts out, write them down and invite people who work in culture to talk to me. I want to ask them about their experience of breaks, pauses and breakthroughs. About their sources of strength and wisdom in coming out of crisis.

I am an artist and an activist. I use interdisciplinary tools, although I work primarily in the performing arts, theatre and community arts. I am a theatre educator, director and playwright. I have collaborated with many theatres in Poland, producing performances or other artistic and educational projects. I facilitate creative and group processes. I design and lead playwriting workshops and artistic-social and activist-educational projects. I am the vice president of the Theatre Pedagogues’ Association, with which I work daily in Warsaw and collaborate with cultural institutions and organisations in various parts of the country and Europe. As part of international collaborations (including the Reshape project), I conceive tools and solutions for transforming the arts and culture sector.

I am also a researcher and for many years co-founded Kolektyw Terenowy, an arts research and training group working on the intersection of art, ethnography and cultural animation. I am the founder of the Theatre-Social Laboratory. I have been working at universities for almost twenty years. I did my PhD at the Institute of Polish Culture and still teach there, including co-creating the post-graduate programme Theatre Pedagogy. At the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology I teach courses on community arts and contemporary theatre. I also run workshops on cultural research methodology and writing and speaking about cultural research.

I have also been working at the Theatre Academy in Warsaw for two years. I am one of the curators of the Slot Art festival, which has been taking place in Lower Silesia for thirty years. I write, publish and invent new tools. I am a mentor and tutor local to leaders, creative groups and teams working in various areas of social life. I am a graduate of the School of Tutoring at the School of Leaders Foundation, the Drama Forum at the Theatre Institute, the School of Ecopoetics at the Institute of Reportage and the CoachWise course. I was an artistic scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the City of Warsaw. In my work I combine imagination and mindfulness, art and people, process orientation and research sensitivity, and the desire to create new tools for social change.

Dorota’s residency is summarised in a journal in the form of a short zine. Each Warsaw Observatory of Culture (WOK) residency has a unique dimension, and the participants’ personal accounts of their experiences reflect this diversity.

At the beginning of the residency, I was curious and hopeful.

I wonder whether this programme can create a space for change, whether it will be enough and whether I will not be distracted by other tasks.

I think about what the CULTURAL WORKERS… project I am working on is all about.

Is it a writing project, a research project, an artistic project or an existential project?

When I meet other residents at WOK, I wonder if I can make space for new people in my life. It seems that I cannot. On the other hand, I remember declaring that I wanted to be in contact with people and to reflect, as in a mirror, on their processes. Well, let us see what happens.

There is something incredibly invigorating about the residency group meetings. My fear that meeting new people means having to make space for them begins to fade, as if their voices and presence are stepping into hitherto unfilled spaces, into long-established crevices.

Crevice is a good word; it immediately comes to mind when I think about my presence in the WOK residency.

The first meeting is about honest stories. People share their doubts, insecurities and the different situations they have found themselves in. A wealth of vulnerability is revealed. I feel their strength and fragility all at once. I think these people are culture workers—just as they are. Being part of the same group will undoubtedly be uplifting for me.

I relate to the different stories.

Art and research.

The cultural institution and the academy.

Motherhood and creation.

Ensemble and solo.

Experimentation and well-trodden paths.

Wishes and money.

I chaired a debate at the “Mothers Dance” forum and listened to the conversations. Many questions arose that will guide me in the chapter on motherhood.

For the first time I felt that this chapter will not be about (or at least not only about) what we have to fight for, what we have to reveal, what we have to demand and what we have to change.

It will also be about what we need to accept and acknowledge. About loss, about the shadow, about the fact that motherhood can also be a hardship and that it takes time to enjoy and experience it. That this time is not available for other things you would like to do at work—and in that sense it is a loss,and a gain at the same time. They go hand in hand. The realisation of this ambivalence became a turning point. I now recognise the enormous cost of something important and priceless.

I am coming to terms with the idea that sometimes a loss can simply be accepted, experienced and survived and that this ultimately leads to a whole life.

My thought process is thickening and my displacement and capacity gap are widening. This makes me very happy. I know I am more patient. I have become bolder and closer to knowing my limits. I can say no without losing my sense of commitment or professionalism.

We had a great closing session where you can look at the process from the perspective of its completion.

Naming, sharing, appreciating.

I can see how much I have borrowed from the other residents, Patrycja, Iza, Stefan, Anastazja, Nina, Monika and Paweł.

It was a break, a celebration and a decision that this residency, its mode and its acquisitions will remain like an application running in the background. I have fallen in love with WOK and its coherence. This place gives support; it’s a significant base.

We recorded a podcast and as the final impulse of this residency, the dream of working in radio came back to me.

To be continued.