Slavic Echoes: Unveiling Paulina Olowska's Mythic Realm

“As a child of six, feverishly confined to my home in Gdańsk, I was visited by visions of three stone giants in the garden, eerily similar to the talking rocks from The Neverending Story. This encounter, one of many considered madness in a family no stranger to such sights, set my course toward art,” says Paulina Olowska. For her, the act of creation parallels the summoning of ghosts, phantoms, and apparitions, with the artist serving as a ‘psychic’ conduit. Her painting process is a blend of affective, semi-conscious expression and deliberate artisanry, using specific tools to construct narratives that traverse both the material and metaphysical realms, rooted deeply in imagination, memory, and the deliberate act of forgetting. It is through this engagement with the past, a reawakening of what once was, that Olowska conjures her spectral, extraordinary imagery.

Driven by an imperative to reconnect and reinterpret history, Olowska's fascination with the aesthetics and female-centred histories of Central and Eastern Europe have propelled her to unearth hidden meanings and narratives obscured by time. Her present is thus inhabited by the phantoms of bygone eras, compelling her to manifest these entities anew. Olowska's approach transcends mere nostalgia; it is an active, inquisitive, and exploratory dialogue with history, particularly evident in her devotion to Slavic goddesses. Inspired by Hélène Cixous's invitation to retrieve ‘from “without” and from “beyond culture,”’[1] Olowska uses the Slavic heritage as a beacon for her hypnotic endeavours, positioning herself as a medium through which the forgotten, buried depths of history and the intricacies of human memory are revealed.

Olowska's initial encounter with the Slavic pantheon, facilitated by her work on theatrical costumes inspired by Zofia Stryjeńska's 1917 designs, unveiled a vibrant tapestry of Slavic deities and myths. Stryjeńska's colourful lithographs, attempts to visualize the elusive Slavic pantheon, were based on fragmented histories, suggesting a detailed mythology that may have been lost to time. In 2017, Olowska's performance Slavic Goddess – A Wreath of Ceremonies at The Kitchen in New York breathed life into these ancient idols, allowing them to narrate and illuminate our world once again. Their silhouettes, as Stryjeńska envisioned, transcended sad shadows of the past and blossomed into vibrant expressions of nature's bounty.

This hypnotic and mesmerizing dance served as a catalyst for Olowska's deeper exploration of “Uncanny Slavdom” (as presented in the cult-book of Polish literary scholar, Maria Janion), a realm in which the Slavic heritage, both alien and intimately familiar, signifies a rupture and a repressed unconscious. Deeply rooted in the concept of “hauntology,”[2] Olowska's work asserts that the present is eternally intertwined with an acknowledged but unconscious past. She challenges the notion of Slavism as a mere historical relic, arguing instead for its deep connection to ancestral beliefs in nature and the cosmos. This ancient culture, whispering the secrets of nature, remains largely unexplored, but holds the potential to enrich contemporary thought.

As we rediscover our connection to ancient indigenous beliefs in post-communist, late-capitalist, and still strongly patriarchal-Catholic Poland, we're asked to reevaluate enduring symbols such as totem animals and apotropaic (protective) gestures and artifacts, encouraging deeper appreciation and understanding rather than superficial judgment. The ritual of Marzanna drowning, traditionally a children's spring play, is transformed under Olowska's creative vision into a profound contemplation of the cycles of life, death, and renewal. In her project at the Artist House Kadenówka Foundation, Mora – Zmora. Female Mythological Figures in Slavic Folklore, the Demon of Winter, Marzanna transcends her folkloric role to become a conduit to the Slavic divine, inviting other deities to return to our world and shed new light on our modern lives.

Olowska's depictions of Slavic goddesses and demons bring these mythical beings to life as vibrant, passionate presences through her art and collaborations. These figures, manifested in large-scale, vibrant works, captivate and demand attention as they oscillate between their natural realms and the familiar yet extraordinary landscapes they inhabit. They appear contemporary and familiar, yet their essence suggests a connection to an otherworldly realm.

Such are the Mamunas that appear in Olowska's recent paintings and videos, presented in the exhibition Squelchy Garden Mules and Mamunas, at Pace Gallery, London, which takes its title from the artist's work first presented in the exhibition Her Hauntology at the Kistefos Museum in Norway in 2022. This title itself suggests a certain duality. Whose hauntology is it? Who is the “she” that appears in the title? Is it a spiritual reconstruction of the artist's own sensibility? Is it “her hauntology?” Or is it rather “her hauntology” of all those women for whom there was no place in official history? And their biographies, history that we must reconstruct from fragments, ghosts that haunt our reality? In the large-format paintings presented in the London exhibition, Olowska demolished the stagnant historical monolith, showing in them what Hannah Arendt described as “revealing meaning without defining it.”[3] This act resonates with Arendt's notion of cultivating an ‘expanded mindset,’ which is echoed in Olowska's approach to history and memory, where she “trains the imagination to go visiting.”[4] This shared pursuit of expansive thinking is palpable as Olowska takes the viewer on a journey reminiscent of Stanisław Wyspiański's enchanting chochol dance in The Wedding,[5] seamlessly weaving together socialist realist fashion, folk handicrafts from Cepelia communist stores, and updated depictions of Slavic goddesses. In Her Hauntology, these goddesses sometimes appear hidden in tree hollows or, as in Squelchy Garden Mules and Mamunas, behind dense foliage.

The work Squelchy Garden Mules and Mamunas (Amy) (2023) depicts a chochol lying on a raw sheep skin rug. A frame decorated with wooden leaves separates them from us. The sleeping entity is—like the titled Mamuna—an ancient Slavic goddess. Today it is difficult to say who exactly the Mamunas were. We know many of their names: Dziwożony, Boginki, Czarcichy, Oćwiary, Pałuby, Dekle, Łanuchy, Odmiennice, Osinauczychy, Paniuńcie, Płaczki, Siubiele, Zamiannice. However, the most common version of their name was the one derived from the Polish verb “mamić,” meaning to act in an appealing way or to deceive someone. According to this etymology, the Mamunas were sometimes called Mamonia or Mamon.

Mamunas liked to live under bridges by the river, which is why they were often associated with Rusalka.[6] Sometimes they sat in the branches of trees, but they also inhabited the dark corridors of caves. They liked places that were inaccessible and hidden from the eyes of outsiders. It is difficult to say exactly what these Mamunas looked like. According to some, they were beautiful young women, while others described them as half-man, half-animal. Still others described them as hairy old women. There were those that believed that the Mamunas were real witches, although it is unclear what these mysterious goddesses were supposed to do. Some legends tell of them washing clothes for days with the help of tadpoles. Other stories emphasise their mischievous nature. They were said to annoy pregnant women, midwives, and sometimes even switch newborn babies with their own changeling children. To protect oneself from their malevolent pranks, it was customary to wear a red string around one's wrist or a cap on one's head. Mamunas were said to dislike the smell of St. John’s Wort, so the flowers were kept in the house to ward them off. Women and young girls who died in childbirth, miscarriage, or during the period of engagement were said to transform into Mamunas.

At first glance, Olowska's Mamunas have little in common with the classical and somewhat archaic depictions familiar from 19th-century academic painting. Olowska's Mamunas, like other representatives of the Slavic imaginary, are not ethereal creatures in white dresses blowing in the wind, but women of flesh and blood. They look contemporary; their clothes are not dissimilar from those worn by women every day. Looking at them, one might even get the impression that the Mamuna could be any girl or woman today. In her paintings, Olowska dresses them in downy hats, woollen coats, and satin dresses, and they point to the spreading treetops, float on a wooden raft, and watch us closely from the edge of the forest. These are the Mamunas we see in the paintings in the exhibition at Pace. Mokosh and Friends, Rod with Children and Mule or Dziewannas (after Branislav Šimončík) (all 2023), depict enchanting young women whom we observe not in an urban environment, but surrounded by wild and untamed nature. They hover on the edge of the spectrum between folklore and modernity.

Such a transfer of a fragment of the past into a completely different, contemporary context is indeed characteristic of Olowska's art. It is a gesture not so much of preserving or perpetuating cultural clichés, but of tearing down and tearing out from the known, different, incompatible contents. Not to dispose of them, but to save them and place them in their rightful context. Olowska's gesture is not to point out the omissions present in history, to shock with contrasting juxtapositions. Rather, the juxtaposition serves the artist to rectify the forgetting and marginalization of women's narratives and sensibilities. There is also a pragmatic dimension to this gesture, manifested in the artist's desire to unlock the potential of these forgotten stories and characters. The latter becomes possible only through the contrast between the new and the old, which is characteristic of the entire project on Slavic goddesses. The artist wants to give her heroines a new future, now that their past has been destroyed and forgotten.

By dressing Mamunas, Rusalka, Dziwożony and other Slavic heroines in contemporary costumes, the artist weaves their story in her own way. As in ‘the arachnology’ postulated by Nancy Miller,[7] it is the clothing, the very fabric, that allows Olowska to give her heroines their lost subjectivity. In the exhibition itself, on the lower ground floor of the gallery, Olowska has displayed large, straw-stuffed dolls in elaborate costumes identical to those worn by the heroines of her paintings. The dolls resemble modernised versions of motanki, or spiritual talisman dolls with “blank” faces, popular in Ukraine. These—as well as Olowska’s Motankas—were made without needles and scissors, using only fragments of cloth and yarn that women would tie into intricate knots. The knotting of these pieces, or more precisely denoted by the Polish word “motanie” (be motley, tangled), was intended to protect the recipient. Many researchers also suggest that motanki were meant to symbolize female creative power and allude to the cult of the Slavic Mother Earth, or Mokosh – protector of women's work and destiny.[8] One of Mokosh’s attributes was the spindle on which the goddess wove; a common offering to her was a ball of wool.

Olowska's exhibition at Pace in London epitomises her navigation through the dualities of identity and deep history, challenging historical narratives to reveal hidden female sensibilities and energy. Olowska not only reclaims the narratives of Slavic mythological figures, but also contemporises them, re-imagining these beings as active participants in the dialogue that shapes our understanding of reality. The show, based on ancient mythologies, is imbued with a modern spirit, illustrating the seamless interplay between folklore and contemporary life, between the mystical and the known. Olowska's Mamunas, no longer mere figments of Slavic folklore but emblems of resilience and presence, are testament to the power of reimagined narratives.

Through Squelchy Garden Mules and Mamunas, Olowska bridges the local with the global, the ancient with the contemporary, creating a narrative that resonates on both a deeply personal and universally profound level. This work, emblematic of Olowska's broader oeuvre, invites us into a realm where the past is not only remembered but vividly alive, engaging with the present in a dialogue that not only enriches our understanding of cultural memory, but also challenges us to imagine a future in which these once-forgotten deities have reclaimed their place in our collective consciousness.

Endnotes

1. Cixous Hélène and Catherine Clément, The Newly Born Woman, transl. by Betsy Wing, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986).
2. A concept introduced by Jacques Derrida in Spectres of Marx (New York: Routledge, 1994).
3. Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968), 105.
4. Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 43
5. A chochol is a straw wrap structure used in Poland in winter to protect fragile plants from the cold and frost. The animated chochol was also one of the characters in Stanislaw Wyspianski's drama The Wedding (1901) - the reference play for the Polish cultural revival called Young Poland. In the play, Wyspianski used the old folk belief that it was dangerous to offend the chochol because it could play tricks on people. In his play The Wedding, the offended chochol puts the wedding party into a dancing trance, making it impossible for them to do anything – see more: (opens in a new window) https://culture.pl/en/work/chocholy-stanislaw-wyspianski; (opens in a new window) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_(1901_play); (opens in a new window) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_wrap
6. See: (opens in a new window) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusalka
7. Nancy K. Miller, “Arachnologies: The Woman, the Text, and the Critic” in Subject to Change: Reading Feminist Writing (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
8. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokosh