Gorgonowa's portrait

2019

 

 

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The project was created after a visit to Lviv and intertwines my family story with the loudest interwar period trial - Gorgonowa's affair. Rita Gorgonowa, a foreigner, nursemaid, concubine was charged with the murder of 17-year-old Lusia Zarembianka on the night of 30 to 31 December 1931 in a villa in Brzuchowice district. For this reason Lviv falls into a psychotic state at that time, but the trial is assessed as circumstantial and the investigation as cursory. More trials follow, Gorgonowa even gives birth to a daughter in the prison.

 

The project consists of a story publication that investigates the tangles of Gorgonowa's affair and the famous trial with my family history two generations back. I build the story with scraps of information that can disappear quickly, like the footprints of a murderer in heavy snowfall. The narrative takes shape in a vacuum. I inquire authenticity of my Grandma's words, who tended to color the reality, she was not afraid to play with the words and to promise the impossible. I am looking for analogies between the pink pearls inherited from her and the color of the walls in the victim's room. I go to Brzuchowice, where years before my juvenile grandfather-uncle was playing in the ruins of a villa that witnessed the murder. Nearby, I also see Gorgonowa's face in the foliage of a tree. Her exhausted spirit still floats over this place.

 

Certain contexts are not without significance. In the year of creating the project, I am about to become 30 years old, the same age as Gorgonowa when she was accused of the murder. Also the project has its premiere during the winter in the Schoen Palace in Sosnowiec, which also brings to mind the villa in Brzuchowice that hides forever a secret of a certain murder.

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curator: Ilona Gajda

project of the book: Katarzyna Ewa Legendź

photos: Katarzyna Ewa Legendź

editor: Beata Nycz