Video

This train ride signals my first journey into Poland, a country I have only ever imagined. Experienced through an artist’s perspective, I am traveling through my homeland in search of mother, both real and metaphorical. My travels through Poland inform a larger creative body of work titled The (Re)Placement Project. Copyright 2019, Ina Puchala

As a child I was fascinated with the Dr. Seuss story titled “Who is My Mother?”, a tale about a small bird separated from its mother. The bird sets upon a journey asking any object, man made or natural, whether it is its Mother. Although light in tone, it was for me an echo of what my internal self was longing to discover. Identity and motherhood are recurrent themes in my work. This segment of video represents the journey to my mother’s village where, by chance, I met my mother’s dear friend and pen pal.

There is no curtain except for intermission and other divisions of the play should be accomplished by changes of lighting.
Production Notes from Tennessee Williams for Summer and Smoke, 1948

This particular body of work was inspired by the Tennessee Williams’ play Summer and Smoke produced by the Shaw festival.

Between scenes, light is filtered through a screen onto the darkened stage, casting an irregular ovoid pattern of warm and cool white light, surrounded by a ground of varying brown and black tones, evoking the feel of smoke. The effect arouses a tsunami of emotion in a quiet expanse of space. Similarly, the successive pauses between acts propel the viewer into the darkest compartment of the psychological interior. Non-action and the sleight of illumination incite a reflection on irreversible change. Such is the kindling for this body of work.