Monument of a Peasant, although inspired by the graphic art of Albrecht Dȕrer, essentially refers to contemporary picture of the Polish countryside and its identity. The non-completed and perhaps subversive in its intent project of the German artist presented the monumental version commemorating Peasants’ Wars from the beginning of the 16th century. Ambivalent and anti-memorial character of this vision, breaking many conventions of that time, was treated as a distant context perfect for rendering our current social and identity-related problems of contemporary countryside.

The process of designing the monument took place in Kurówko and Gorzewo villages in Northern Mazowsze, with participation of many people actively involved in artistic actions of Daniel Rycharski who was born in this region. Therefore, it is an expression of the local tradition of alteration, recycling of old machine parts and devices possible thanks to skillfulness and ideas of the local craftsmen. It also reveals the influence of critically-disposed countryside artists producing their own type of output engaged in criticizing the present reality.

Monument’s functioning resembles a pilgrimage of a special object transferred from hands to hands, one by one visiting selected cities and villages during its journey. The ritual of peregrination is, on the one hand, a reference to a stereotypical image of folk religiosity, on the other an attempt to establish a secular holiday, creation of a community around an object which becomes a platform for expressing personal beliefs. It literarily functions as a mobile rostrum from which anyone can give a speech. This performative aspect and emerging interactions are one of the key components which make us see the current picture of these areas.

Today, the Monument already has its history recorded in the routes it completed, in relationships and meanings that have arisen around it during its journey. Since its unveiling in 2015, it travelled across Mazowsze and Małopolska regions, it was presented in the centre of Warsaw. During these events, it attempted to articulate the grass-root voice in the recently popular debates about serfdom, where it drew attention to the threat of encapsulating the countryside in a safe distance from modernity. It defended the land when it worked as a protesting tool used to articulate slogans shouted out during demonstrations. Its mobility and ability to change the context is related to the relational character of meanings built anew through transformations of its form and relations entered into by individual inhabitants, users of the work. By referring to its paradoxical function of a monument that is not able to commemorate anything, its stay in Lublin will be dedicated to the problem of exclusion in the countryside; conspicuity and invisibility of different groups not fitting into stereotypical idea of the provinces. Loneliness, lack of acceptance and expelling to the margin of visibility in the case of countryside queer become another question to be thought over and expressed via the Monument. New form of a memorial made by countryside activists, the camouflage pattern, is a play on conspicuity and invisibility, hiding and revealing problematic identities. In this case, the camouflage pattern becomes a perfectly striking form, emphasized by the factor of artistic undertaking, that is appearance of the Monument of a Peasant.

Once the festival is over, the Monument will set out on a journey to another destination, searching for a space where it will be able to act as a catalyst of meanings, contributing to development of new relationships.