By special guest writer: Martin van der Meer
After a decent breakfast at the dormitory of the campus we could start the first day of our visit to Jelenia Gora. On this day the rector of Kollegium Karkonosze welcomed us in what appears to be the main lobby/symposiumhall of the campus and drs Han Bakker explained the objectives of our visit along with the programme for the following days.
This was also the place where we first met the Polish students -mostly first year English students- who would accompany us throughout our stay. After dividing into subgroups there was some time to get acquainted. At first it took some time of course to adjust and get accustomed to each other, but after a while it was nice to share our thoughts about each other’s habits, experiences and expectations.
Later that morning, one of the Polish students of our subgroup and I were interviewed for what I thought was some sort of college-TV, about our visit to Jelenia Gora and The Kollegium Karkonosze, about our first impressions and what we’ve done so far and what the rest of the programme contains.
For that particular day, the program led us to the Warsztaty Terapii Zajęciowej (a workshop for mentally challenged people), where people with mental disabilities are trained for future jobs in several crafts. It was a well-organized and varied programme with a focus on health and independence for the participants.
In the afternoon, after a -let’s say interesting- soup for lunch, the whole group of Dutch and Polish students went to an art gallery in the centre of Jelenia-Gora where, among some other works of several artists, the film “Them” was shown by a Polish artist named Artur Zmijeski. To me, this was one of the (many) highlights of this trip. In short, Poland is a highly divided and torn country, with a lot of conservatism and nationalism firmly rooted in its history on one side, and a liberal and progressive other side grasping to the future. In this film Artur Zmijeski shows the nerve of this conflict by having four opposing movements make an artwork of their ideal Poland, to subsequently let the other groups alter it to their ideas. A brilliant piece of work where a conflict is exposed which actually transcends the Polish borders. Unfortunately, this theme can be found everywhere, and as a social work student at a university of Applied Sciences, I find the method of using art the way Artur Zmijeski does, very inspiring for the future.
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