Jakub Danilewicz

 

Precious | video 1’41’’, 2018

The nine-year-old girl’s name is Precious. A few years ago, when she and her family fled from North Africa through the Mediterranean, she landed in Calabria on the southern coast of Italy. The integration project in which her family is taking part is drawing to a close.

During a music workshop observed by Danilewicz, Precious spontaneously sang Bella ciao. The video presented at NARRACJE is a recording of her singing the song again, invited to do so by the artist. The song sang by Precious was written around 1942, soon becoming the hymn of Italian anti-fascist resistance. Its melody was borrowed from a folk song sung by workers from the Po Valley. Goodbye, beautiful is sung all over the world, always carrying a message of freedom. Below is an English version of the lyrics:

One fatal morning I had awoken,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
One fatal morning I had awoken
And I found myself a slave!
Oh noble soldier, please take me with you
For I long to fight and die!
If I should fall then like those before me
Then you’ll have to bury me.
Please take my body, up to the mountain
And bury me beneath the veil.
And all the people, when they pass by me,
They will say: “What beauty rare!”
This is the flower of noble soldiers
Who have died for freedom dear.

Jakub Danilewicz, for whom Precious sang Bella ciao, graduated from the 5th Secondary School, and it is on one of its walls that the Camini recording is screened.

locationwall of the 5th Secondary School, Polanki 130

 

Jakub Danilewicz (b. 1992) is a visual artist, author of video installations, photographs and experimental films. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, currently studies at the University of Art and Design in Linz, and holds a scholarship from WHW Akademija in Zagreb. His art touches upon historical and ecological politics, bioethics and areas of exclusion, and his works often take on the form of interventions. Danilewicz lives and works in Gdańsk.

« Back

Instytut Kultury Miejskiej
Długi Targ 39/40, Gdańsk
www.ikm.gda.pl

Contact for media:
marta.banka@ikm.gda.pl
tel. 784 594 003

Instytut Kultury Miejskiej Miasto Gdańsk
Narracje 10

Narracje 10