Warsaw, at home, 22.08.2000
– Oreste, Oreste, is this a kind of workshop?
Hmmm… Italy. If it is a workshop with excursions I’d like to come. What projects? About kitchen? I’ve been writing diploma about kitchen. Second project connected with people? I can talk, I speak Italian a little. OK, I check it at Internet. It’s no need to do art? Only take a part in one of the projects. I see…
– Lukasz, Do you know what is this Oreste?
– No, I don’t. But you should go. I hope it will be nice, you will meet some new people. And don’t forget to take their addresses to visit them later. Hmm, I think Oreste participated at the Venice Biennale.
– I was at Biennale, but I don’t remember any Oreste.
– It was an empty space with tables and papers.
– I have to check it in the catalogue…Yes, There is! „Who is Oreste? Nobody is Oreste. Oreste is not a group…”
– Listen, Lukasz, They don’t want us to do art.
– Well, you would take pictures.
– But, there will come only artists.
– Yes, this is probably a kind of art holidays.
– No, I think I should go as a journalist, as Raster magazine. And I will write an article about this Oreste, if I will manage to understand what it is.
– Mammy, It is not a sect. They were at the Venice Biennale. At Biennale do not show charlatans. Besides I go with Dorota.
– Come tomorrow to take some money. You should have some money, just in case…
– But where in Basilicata?
– Montescaglioso, near Matera, Auntie.
– I wanted to visit it during my stay in Italy. This is a wild province. “Christ stopped in Eboli”.
– Don’t you know this book or film based on it?
– Lukasz, I go to a wild country. Even Christ did not reach there.
– Italian country cannot be worst then Polish one, rather better.
Montescaglioso, before Moslem dinner, 29.08
– This is a piece of cardboard for you. And here there are markers and sprays.
– Something abstractive to make an impression of the Moslem carpet.
– Abstractive… Hmm… I should paint some Moslem patterns. In Warsaw we have an Arabian carpets collection and I saw it two times, but I don’t remember any pattern. What to do? I’m starting from the border with some geometric plants. Then I’ll put a rectangular lake in the middle. Water and plants are always meaningful.
– This is not abstractive.
– Well, Yes. I can do something new.
– Oh, no, no... OK, I like it.
– Look at him. He is all dressed white.
– I’m afraid that his trousers will be dirty if he sits at this sprayed cardboard.
– That’s why I put dark trousers on.
– Look, he is putting a towel under his seat.
– So, why did he ask us to paint all these cardboard carpets?
– I was said that we would eat by hands without spoons, really like Moslems.
– Good idea, but everybody uses the spoon.
– I think eating like Moslems means that men and women eat separately, we after men.
– Do you want to wait for your turn, when men have eaten the best food?
– No, but eating with spoons is lack of radicalism.
– Natasha eats without using spoon. It doesn’t look like a dinner, it looks like a cabaret.
Montescaglioso, at Italian family, 1.09
– Buongiorno, I am fat and that is why I am tired. Where are you from?
– From England and Poland.
– I saw a queen on television and from Poland … the pope is from Poland.
– When I came here I couldn’t understand what is going on. Do they want me to do any work? I’d rather do something together with others.
– I have felt lost for the first few days and I have been nervous. Then I’ve picked up the rhythm of common breakfasts, lunches and dinners.
– If we call Oreste all the excursions, discussions, knowing people, swimming, dancing and everything we do here, Oreste means Oreste.
– Yes, we are Oreste now.
15 things which astonished me during Oreste:
– some mutual friends beyond Oreste with people whom I met at Oreste;
– an office closed for 3 days because of lack of a computer;
– a siesta which can cause a disaster (you cannot copy anything for the public presentation);
– a total lack of water in a city for some days;
– a cook who doesn’t want any help in preparation of your dinner;
– a kind of mozzarella cheese stretching like a chewing gum;
– too late dinner time, against any reasonable diet;
– the wild Sassi people fighting with the civilised Oreste people to catch some food during an integrating dinner;
– the difficulties in keeping silent during the Benedictine dinner;
– a popular form of selling own fruits in front of a house;
– a shop-assistant who doesn’t know the prices of the products she sells;
– an existence of Fiat 126p, the car from the 70s, standing at Italian street, just like in Poland;
– the people taking the same pictures;
– the enormous sea waves in Metaponto;
– a bucket of watermelons prepared by Finnish to the beach.
