Kosmopoles in Bochum: European culture with a Polish focus from the Ruhr area

Every Kosmopole is different – and sometimes not even a Pole
 

Perhaps it is fitting that everyone wants to understand the name in the way they choose. Because each member in their own way identifies as German, as Polish, as both or as neither. Each member considers their role, their calling – their art – to be influenced in a very individual way by the question of identity.

In the discussion with Porta Polonica, the jazz singer Kasia Bortnik granted us an insight into how identity and art are interwoven for her. In 1997, she left her parents and siblings to study in the neighbouring country and says without hesitation: “Of course I am a Pole.” But then she takes stock and adds: “Germany has become my home.” How will she define herself when her parents are no longer there? One of her songs has a German name “Heimat” [“Homeland”], but the text is in Polish. In the verse Kasia Bortnik sings: „Chcę być tam gdzie soczyste gaje, słowa ojczyste dumne jak żurawie, czyny szlachetne i serca otwarte na dobro i prawdę.” (“I want to be where the juicy groves are, where the words of the homeland are as proud as the cranes, where the deeds are noble and the hearts are open to goodness and truth.”)

Some of her music has been inspired by images of her childhood in Silesia. She recorded “Kiej na mojej jo mateczce”, a Silesian folk song, for her 2019 album “The Moon Is Just a Fake”. Born in Breslau, she prefers to write in Polish, the language of her homeland as she herself says, but also in English, the language of her heart. She still has not dared to write in German. She only recently discovered the poems by Hilde Domin, which directly conjure up melodies in her head. These poems are currently being set to music.

Emanuela Danielewicz’s creativity does not let itself be tied down by language. Her profession, photography, has different schools and different styles, as does every art form. American photography is different to European, explains Emanuela Danielewicz. But to say that she does Polish photography – she sees that as a “criticism” of her creativity. She creates portraits, there are no nationalities in that.

At most, her art is European. “What is Polish is European”, says Emanuela Danielewicz. During our talk, she always refers back to the fact that nationalist trends, particularly in Poland, but also elsewhere, have intensified. As a personal goal and by using her creativity, she wants to break down nationalities, or at least nationalisms. “Portrait photography is a dialogue” and dialogue ultimately is the bridge between two so-called fronts. For this reason, she does not like terms, such as “Germanpoles” and “German-Polish cultural event” either. These terms do not just contain one nationalism, they contain two at the same time!

Kosmopolen should be the path out of nationality, not into it, explains the association’s founder.