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Art Workshop

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Jolanta Gisman-Stoch

Home Sweet Home – The Memory Workshop

Feelings of Home are often a nexus of conflicting impulses: a paradise lost, an aboriginal space of innocence, a prison to escape from. Home is a dynamic, situated concept: an ancient emotional structure constantly needing repair, renovation and updating to accommodate our changing lives.

The Polish-Lithuanian epic Pan Tadeusz (1834), written by A. Mickiewicz, is my inspiration. It can be seen as a story about home, its darkness and light, but most of all about its beauty that can be seen from a distance because of our yearning. The book was written in Paris at the time of the poet’s political emigration and can be seen as The Odyssey of this very place in Europe.
In this workshop I shall ask participants to choose a potentially ‘homely’ space in the surrounding gardens or buildings and play with the possibilities of home making using materials to hand, the aim being to make it like no other place. Home is an affecting presence that casts its spell, shaping who we are and who we might hope to become.
According to D. Haraway's thesis, Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective (1988), the parental home provides the infant with its first model for being in the world. Home is an environment charged with emotional meanings, infused with social and cultural values, structured around conventional ways of knowing and doing things. Over time, however, the child’s genetic inheritance begins to assert itself as the potential for self-actualization, challenging the status quo and exploring the possibilities of being otherwise. But we can only ever be situated in a particular world, and home continues to situate our understanding, demanding our presence.
The workshop will be a time for creativity and reflection on its therapeutic application.

Dom jako poruszająca obecność – Warsztaty pamięci

Poczucie domu jest często efektem sprzecznych impulsów.Widzimy dom jako utracony raj, pierwotną przestrzeń niewinności, przestrzeń ograniczeń i niewoli. Dom to dynamiczna, usytuowana idea, pradawna struktura emocjonalna nieustannie wymagająca napraw, renowacji i aktualizacji w celu dostosowania jej do zmieniającego się życia.
Ważną inspiracją projektowanych warsztatów jest polsko-litewski epos “Pan Tadeusz” (1834). Można ten utwór zobaczyć jako opowieść o domu – o jego ciemnych i jasnych zakamarkach ale przede wszystkim o jego pięknie, które widzi się lepiej z dystansu i dzięki tęsknocie. Książka powstała w Paryżu w czasie politycznej emigracji poety i może być postrzegana jako “Odyseja” tej części Europy.
Uczestnicy warsztatów zostaną poproszeni o wybranie potencjalnie “domowej” przestrzeni w otoczeniu uniwersytetu bądź w jego budynkach i stworzenie instalacji domu przy użyciu dostępnych materiałów i przedmiotów uruchamiających pamięć. Celem działań twórczych ma być stworzenie domu, który jest jedyny i niepowtarzalny: który jest poruszającą obecnością, mającą wpływ nato co dobre w naszym życiu i co złe, który kształtuje to, kim jesteśmy i kim się stajemy.
Zgodnie z tezą D.Haraway,"Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective" (1988), dom rodzinny zapewnia dziecku pierwszy model bycia w świecie. Jest środowiskiem pełnym emocjonalnych znaczeń, przepełnionym wartościami społecznymi i kulturowymi wbudowanymi w konwencjonalne sposoby poznawania i działania. Z biegiem czasu genetyczne dziedzictwo dziecka zaczyna nabierać znaczenia jako potencjał istotny w procesach samorealizacji, tak potrzebny do kwestionowania status quo i eksperymentowania z możliwościami ‘bycia inaczej’. Zawsze jesteśmy usytuowani i to właśnie dom sytuuje nasze rozumienie świata i siebie domagając się naszej obecności.
Planowany warsztat pozwoli na twórcze działania jak i refleksję nad ich terapeutycznym
znaczeniem.

Jolanta Gisman-Stoch is an artist and an art teacher. She works as a lecturer in arts education, socio-cultural animation and arts therapy (University of Silesia in Katowice, Academia Ignatianum in Krakow, Poland). She leads workshops in creative and expressive arts. Her main interest is the dynamic of the creative process in arts and the educational and therapeutic value of that process. She is a certified art therapist, a member of the Society of Polish Arts Therapists Kajros. Beside her work with students, she leads her art therapy practice working with women experiencing domestic violence.
She works with groups of children and adults within a long-term collaboration with cultural, educational and therapy institutions in Poland. Jolanta is the author of more than 150 original workshops tailored to the different needs of groups and individuals as well as to the places where the workshops take place.
She has run annual creative, art research camps in natural regions of Poland. The participants carry out environmental work by exploring the dynamic of the creative process in connection to their personal and professional development. The camps are summarized in the form of visual publications – art exhibitions at the university gallery.
For 20 years she has run the socio-cultural animation studio at the Faculty of Arts and Educational Science at the University of Silesia.
In 2017 she delivered the opening address at the ECArTE conference in Krakow (Poland).
For nearly 30 years she has stayed in cooperation with Malcolm Ross (UK) writing together and leading workshops for students in Poland. Since 2018, being invited by Prof. Eltie Boss (Amsterdam University) she has been involved in the international research project “The social value of arts”, being a member of the international research group preparing a publication for Routledge working in collaboration with Academia Ignatianum.

Recent Publications and Presentations

Jolanta Gisman-Stoch

Gisman-Stoch, J. (2019). My Birth Will Be Tomorrow. Being Present in the Transitional Space Between Old and New. A Voice from Poland. In: Traditions in Transitions in the Arts Therapies, eds: Hougham,R., Pitruzzella,S., Scoble,S. & Wengrower,H. Published by University of Plymuth Press.

Gisman-Stoch,J. (2019).Patrząc w tym samym kierunku. Studenci animacji na Cieszyńskiej Nocy Muzeów/ Looking at the same direction. Students of Socio-Cultural Animation at the Museum Night in Cieszyn. In: „Almanch Cieszyński”. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. Katowice.

Gisman-Stoch,J.(2011) Irresponsibility of an arts teacher. In: Ross,M. Cultivating the Arts in Education and Therapy.

Art publication: Gisman-Stoch,J. with cultural animation students. Anima Mea Anima Nostra – post creative camp exposition 2020) The University of Silesia in Katowice, Faculty of Arts and Educational Science in Cieszyn.


Conference presentations:
2019: Gisman-Stoch, J. Keynote lecture: The therapeutic value of making something useless. The opening of the academic year for students of the arts therapy courses Utrecht University of Applied Science, Amersfort Netherlands, 2019

2017: Gisman-Stoch, J. Opening address: My Birth Will Be Tomorrow. Being Present in the Transitional Space Between Old and New. 14th ECArTE Conference: “Traditions in Transition. New Articulations in the Arts Therapies”. Kraków 2017.

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