A caring institution.
Her arms, stretching out to others.
Her walls, stairs, and roof all inviting them in.
She hosted them as best she could,
offered them shelter and listened patiently.
Stood next to them and held their hands,
no longer speaking from the position of authority.
Opened her gate, so that it was no longer a barrier to be forced through
Surrendered her megaphone, along with her voice.
She hugged and she listened.
She warmed them with her breath.
Together with the communities who
wanted to join her, with non-human entities,
children, activists, minorities, the lonely, the unheard,
the untouched, and those in need of hope.
She opened up: without fear, in candour, and began
learning from them, while sharing her own resources and networks.
Organic movement.
Organic action.
Organic (post)growth.
Jaśmina Wójcik (dr. habil., associate professor at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology) was born in 1983 in Warsaw. She is a visual artist, film director, educator, activist, and initiator of participatory socio-artistic actions. She works on inclusion and giving subjectivity to communities lacking visibility and voice. Co-editor of the book Art with Community (2018), describing more broadly the long-term actions she initiated with the community of former workers of the Ursus factory, culminating in the award-winning feature-length creative documentary Symphony of the Ursus Factory (2018), also directed by Wójcik. For the past ten years, she has been involved in empathetic education—Wójcik is the author of the MANIFESTO OF EMPATHETIC EDUCATION. She gives agency and subjectivity to children, treating them as co-creators and inviting them into dialogue. Her latest creative documentary, which is based on Janusz Korczak’s novel King Matt the First, was made in collaboration with children based on the principles of grassroots education. It tells the story of sisterhood and the inevitability of growing up, thus raising the possibility of saving one’s inner child and retaining a certain type of sensitivity (as well as courage) that one possesses as a child. Wójcik tries to spend every free moment with her family in the wilderness, observing non-human beings, turning towards them with special attention and awe.