Festival Theme: Welcome to the Playground !
2019: The year, in which palace and port are being re-imagined by new players. The theme of the festival week will therefore be called : “Welcome to the playground!” What does the word playground evoke for you?
The instinct of a child to play? The nostalgia of an adult? Sensory themes like movement and headwind. Water games. Climbing in lofts. Hatching plans with friends. Making discoveries. This is what many individuals connect with Sztynort – whether they know the place as children on vacations, as local villagers, as volunteer helpers, as sailing crews as newcomers.
And this is not the end of our associative chain. We can travel further, down darker alleys of destiny and fate, just like Historian Norman Davies used the words in his book “God’s Playground. A history of Poland’. The palace of Sztynort/Steinort has its own stories to tell about that metaphor – as a playground of European, Polish, German history.
And further consider, which “normal” places can become playgrounds (regardless of age). Building sites, holiday resorts, ruins, heritage sites, concert stages, parks. That’s Sztynort for you.
Playing is always located in space, but constantly creates new spaces stretching the places in which it operates – playgrounds. Wherever somebody is playing, there is a playground. Yet playing has a double face – on reglemented sites, it can become boring very quickly, yet in illegal playgrounds, it tends to be dangerous. Official playgrounds can be safe spaces, but the can also be exclusive.
What is so particular about the playground of Sztynort? And what is universal about it? Who is it for and who takes care of it? And what can we learn from the principle of the playground for the future of Sztynort?
With the workshops, cultural events, themed guided tours, the palace scenography and the exhibition, the cultural week explored the many facets of the manor of Sztynort/Steinort as unique and yet universal “Playground”.
