CURSED MOORLAND

In the short story “The Colour Out of Space” by H.P. Lovecraft, a series of mysterious events occur on a farm near the small town of Arkham in New England. They are preceded by the fall of something, that the witnesses of the event recognize (knowing how it unfolds - erroneously) as a meteorite. The bizarre object not from this world is characterized by a number of peculiar properties affecting its surroundings. Although, for unknown reasons, it literally disappears during the activities carried out by the scientists investigating it as the story unfolds, the strength of its impact grows. The surrounding trees sway their branches despite the lack of wind, and their exceptionally abundant crops become inedible. The cabbage “shape was downright incredible, and the horse screeched from the unbelievable stench that no cabbage had yet given off.” Unpalatable crops, grass that changes color and leaves that glow at night are, by the way, the least of the problems for those living on the farm, because the consequences of the appearance of the cursed object will drive them to madness and a terrible end. Just the thought of this cursed moorland where the described events were supposed to have occurred, makes the narrator flinch, although his knowledge of the events is only borrowed from an actual witness. Jankowo Dolne, the hometown of Klaudia Figura, also became the target of an object not from this earth, but the fate of the people and places associated with this story presents itself quite differently from the dark tales of the gloomy bard from Providence. The meteorite from Jankowo Dolne turned out to be a “quite ordinary” iron meteorite, which, according to estimates, fell to earth somewhere between 4100 and 2700 BC. There are no official historical references that speak of its disastrous effects on the surrounding land, let alone people. Its ordinariness is also underscored by the fact that the meteorite was found in 2004 in an abandoned bee hive, where it had previously played an important, but also extremely mundane role as a weight bearer. Absolutely not a sign of doom from ant outer space, but simply a pretty big chunk of rock that once splashed into the neighborhood at high speed. And yet, both the area around Jankowo, where Klaudia Figura comes from, and Radoszyce, which is Małgorzata Mycek's hometown, are full of stories, events and places that some people talk about quietly, just in case. Who knows whose ears are hiding in the swampy thickets of the valley, which for too many years served as a graveyard and garbage dump for sick and unwanted animals? Polish villages and smaller towns are full of haunted houses (with the obligatory crosses, turning upside down out of nowhere), neighbors casting evil glances with evil charms and dogs barking at ghosts during evening walks near cemeteries. This is absolutely not a trend associated with the ongoing “folk turn,” but a tendency that has been quite well documented in both scholarly texts and the local press for at least several hundred years, as medievalist and cultural history researcher Łukasz Kozak writes about in great detail in his recent book “Phantom. A Natural History.” The stories evoked on the pages of this book and those behind Klaudia Figura and Malgorzata Mycek's exhibition are intuitively easy to associate with horror fiction in the broadest sense. However, they relate to each other in about the same way as the cursed moorland near Radoszyce to the one that surrounds a small farm located near Lovecraft's Arkham. Only one of these places is characterized by weirdness, described by Mark Fisher as “a special kind of disturbance” and “being wrong,” when “it seems to us that a bizarre creature or object should not exist, or at least not in this place.” And even though ghostly creatures have been seen there, they are not the moors of either Radoszyce or Jankowo. The apparent coincidence of the themes explored by the artists participating in the exhibition with the work of the American writer lies primarily in the specificity of the place and its general uncanniness. In both cases, the accompanying narratives concern the periphery in the broadest sense: a desolate farm, a village or a small town. They become the backdrop for the events (sometimes also the main reason behind them), which can be considered mysterious, disturbing, scary. What tells us about the difference, however, is not so much the content of the uncanny stories themselves, but where it comes from. In Lovecraft's story, it comes to us not from this world. It has the ability to transform our (human) reality, but its genesis is impossible to understand, because it was created somewhere else. In a distant, mostly monstrous space-time at the crossroads of dark worlds governed by their inhuman laws. In fact, the writer's work has been analyzed from this angle many times, but even a brief knowledge of it does not leave much doubt. In some stories, the main theme seems to be the fear of otherness and the dangers lurking outside. Despite its undoubted credits in the literary field, there is plenty of evidence pointing to the author's deep prejudices. On the pages of his stories, but also in the letters he exchanged with his readers, a white, Anglo-Saxon gentleman with characteristic superiority and contempt describes many idolastrous cults and ignorant people, overly often attributed to people of different skin color and those living outside of the cities. The uncaniness of Jankowo Dolne, Radoszyce or even a little larger Radzionków is different from the one we experience, for example, in some works from the wide horror genre. Because of its immanence it can be almost paradoxical and in this sense it is the opposite of Freudian uncaniness, which is simply understood as something that evokes a sense of unease through the blending of foreign elements with those familiar to us. An example is precisely the native wraiths described by the already mentioned Łukasz Kozak. They do not come to us from the depths of hell or other dimensions, but they simply live next door, probably on the edge of the village. They often have names, and outside of their ghostly , they do the most ordinary things. In a similar context, Kozak quotes a piece from a lecture by Adam Mickiewicz (who in some circles is considered a ghoul or fawn), who says of ghostliness that “it is a human and natural phenomenon, but an extraordinary one, and one that cannot be explained by reason.” It doesn't mean, of course, that wraiths or, very much already generalizing, other “unusual” phenomena sometimes found in rural areas and smaller towns are not usually dangerous. But unlike Lovecraft's short stories, which can be safely interrupted and put away at any time, certain threats demand a very specific and immediate response. The fictional R`lyeh exists only on the pages of the novel, but the “cursed moorlands,” for example, in the form of illegal dumpsters of animal carcasses, affect not only the imagination, but leave a their dark mark on the environment and the local community that is a part of it. The works presented at the exhibition by Malgorzata Mycek and Klaudia Figura result from direct observations of their immediate surroundings and processing of experiences and heard stories without getting caught up in an enlightened rationalization. Both describe, in their own ways, a reality that escapes the project of a classicist vision of the world and the countryside. It's an everyday reality where field work coexists with queer vampires, and sand is drawn from fox burrows, because that's where supposedly you can find the best one. The croaking of frogs and the barking of dogs break the deaf silence, echoing off the dark walls of the forest. Everyone knows that it is better not to go there after dark, just in case. When you look out the window in the distance you can see the pale light reflecting off the misty puddles of the cursed moorland. Today there was a giant moon and a faded skeleton of the Sosnowsky's hogweed, and I swear that yesterday I saw the ghost of a cow there.