Folk Rites - a graphic story about the spirits of ancestors

In January, at the initiative of Piotr Kulka, the opening of the exhibition of Marta Naskręt, a graduate of the Wrocław Academy of Fine Arts in the Graphic Arts Department and the Kalisz Fine Arts High School with a profile in Renovation of Architectural Details, took place at the headquarters of the Provincial Public Library and the Cultural Animation Center in Poznań.
The exhibition “Folk Rites – a graphic story about the spirits of ancestors” consists of six large linocuts depicting annual rituals. Three works show rural rituals from Wielkopolska region: “Podkoziołek”, carol singing and “Śmigus-dyngus” with elements of embroidery called “Snutka Golińska”. The remaining ones focus on Slavic celebrations: Radunica, Kupala Night and the Harvest Festival.
The young artist drew knowledge to create the graphics regarding Wielkopolska from Oskar Kolberg’s publication The Grand Duchy of Poznań, and the inspiration for their creation was her encounter with traditional regional handicrafts, specifically embroidery from the village of Golina – the “Snutka Golińska”, the reconstruction of elements of folk costumes such as bonnets, ruffs, bands and others, and getting to know ethnographic parks and museums. Getting to know, among others, the Wielkopolska Ethnographic Park and the huts located there from the vicinity of Ostrów Wielkopolski served as a background in the graphic “Dynguśnica” and it was them that inspired her further works.
In each of the folk graphics based on customs, you can see a mixture of Wielkopolska patterns in extremely rich and dynamic takes, applied to something other than the original embroidery, but still, as a decorative form. In addition, the graphics feature the previously mentioned embroidery – “Snutka Golińska”, which are the culmination of each work, paying tribute to the memory of such a fragile beauty of this characteristic Greater Poland embroidery technique and the artist’s family roots.
The second part of the graphics is devoted to the prototypes of contemporary and folk rituals, showing the world of our ancestors from the early Middle Ages. Here, Marta Naskręt allowed herself greater creative freedom. The ornaments shown in these graphics come, among others, from fragments of vessels and clothing discovered in Poland. In these ritual graphics, she showed the world of the Western Slavs. Since she spent her student years in Lower Silesia, the artist decided to dedicate one of them, “Radunica”, to the Slavic ritual from the local regions. It shows the spring Dziady celebrations in the area of the Ślęża massif, which, like the Slavic Olympus, was a place of worship here. This work is also part of her search for regional identity, only in this case more from the side of the Slavic world than the rural one.
An additional element of the exhibition was a tableware set (plates and cups) with elements of patterns taken from the customs and embroidery of the Wielkopolska region, especially Raszków. The tableware was created from a collection of old unused vessels, onto which decorations were transferred using the ceramic overglaze transfer technique.
As the artist said during the opening of the exhibition, the main assumption of her project was to find her own regional identity, to promote Wielkopolska folk culture and Slavic culture.
Marta Naskręt, an enthusiast, a representative of the young generation, is a person extremely committed to promoting traditional Wielkopolska culture. It is thanks to her commitment, the knowledge she has acquired and is constantly gaining, as well as skillful communication, that Wielkopolska art will continue to exist, and the customs shown will become a source of inspiration for future generations.
PK