This week I saw the Racławice Panorama painting for the first time in my life. I was supposed to see it thirty years ago, but I didn’t make it because I got sick. I regretted it immensely; not seeing the Panorama by any means, but such a long bus ride with my class. Well, I won’t make up for that. What I could make up for was seeing it, and to my surprise, I was not disappointed. I was quite impressed by this imposing painting. By its size and level of detail, yes, but above all, by the painting being a testament to the somehow touching human need to present and record moments in time and space. The participants of the battle are dead, the painters are dead, the officials arguing about where the painting should hang are also probably dead, and yet the painting was created, survived the difficult moments in history, was hung there and keeps on hanging. Renovated and well maintained. It was created not for the glory of the authors, not as great art, but as a vehicle of memory. The painting also shows many horses in battle.

And after seeing Panorama, I watched the first episode of the Polish edition of The EX Team on TV and I got emotional too – maybe less, but still a little. With a little bit of good will, this can be interpreted as a picture of forbearance, forgiveness, reconciliation and kindness, despite the past. What more to want from people.

And then I listened to Born Slippy .NUXX several times and got emotional again; something started to come to my mind, something began to clarify, but it didn’t fully come, nor did it become fully clear. 

Enişte already knows. He still tries to argue, but he feels it is no use. Despair and fear begin to appear in his voice. He sees a slither of hope in the fact that he is, after all, the author of the work. But works are smarter than their creators and at a certain point the works no longer need their creators. Quite the opposite.

(transl. Magdalena Małek-Andrzejowska)