Roads to Liberty

The exhibition entitled "Roads to Freedom" is shown on the premises of Gdansk Shipyard, commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the day when the so called "Gdansk Agreement" was signed. The bottom line of the project is to remind the society of the role which Gdansk events played in the abandonment of the Communist ideology and further geopolitical transformations in Eastern Europe.

The exhibition has been initiated and organised by the Municipality of Gdansk which asked the Centre of Contemporary Art laŸnia (Bathhouse) to co-ordinate and realise the project. The visual message of the exhibition is devoted mostly to the history of the "Solidarity" movement, as well as remembering the events of 1956, 1968, 1970 and 1976, along with records of 1980 and the time of martial law, until the years closed by 1989.

The exhibition, meant as the inauguration of the Solidarity Centre, will be shown for three years, then it will be supplemented and transferred to the future Solidarity Centre. The majority of exhibits will be audio-visual, comprising of slide shows with commentary and film projections using fragments of documentaries and archival materials, as well as amateur films and photographs.

The historical material is illustrated with visual documentaries from that time, arranged according to entries available in the computer programme. The material is divided into eleven thematic groups: the underground state, Polish United Workers' Party, secret service, propaganda, important dates, daily life in PRL, the Church, democratic opposition, culture, censorship, and emigration. Each entry gives short information on basic facts from the history of a selected issue.

The other part of the exhibition consists of a spatial project composed of two gates linked with a ramp. The first of the gates is shaped like the ship bow, its shape submerging symbolizing the fall of the communistic Polish People's Republic. From the outside, the construction retains the rough character of a wall of unpainted, corroded steel . The other gate makes references to an unrealised project of the Monument to the Third International by a Russian Constructivist Vladimir Tatlin. It is a contemporary reinterpretation of the Utopian ideas formulated on the surge of leftist movements, incorporated and exploited by the ideologies of the 20th-century totalitarian systems. The outer structure of the composition symbolises the collapse of and departure from totalitarian, unifying ideologies.