The Heart of the City That Once Was

In 2020, I took on the task of referencing Symcha Trachter’s output for the first time. 

It was the JHI’s exhibition Symcha Trachter 1894–1942. Light and Colour, curated by Jakub Bendkowski, and I produced a video titled UZ, inspired by Trachter’s last work – Job, an unpreserved and undocumented polychromatic painting. The piece adorned an interior wall of the erstwhile seat of the Judenrat, located in the now defunct Main Building of the Jewish Community at Grzybowska Street in Warsaw. 

Unbothered by the general consensus, I embarked on an unsuccessful journey to find Trachter’s polychromatic painting – I searched for it in the modern hotel erected in the vicinity of the demolished Jewish Community building. I used a ground-penetrating radar, a professional archaeological tool helping discover and study the things invisible to the naked eye, the things hiding under the surface. 

Agnieszka Mastalerz, UZ, projection of echograms, 2020

Now, in The Heart of a City…, I have decided to discuss and bring attention to one of Symcha Trachter’s surviving works – his 1920 painting Irises. 

The name of the eponymous flowers comes from the goddess Iris, a messenger connecting the worlds of gods and humans. Contrary to the tragic news received by Job, the messages carried by Iris were meant to bring humans hope. 

I have produced a photography diptych corresponding with Trachter’s Irises by taking staged photos showing the work done at the Seed Bank in the Botanical Garden of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Powsin. By choosing seeds as the protagonists of my photos, I have once again, as I did in UZ, focussed on what lies underneath. The bank drew my interest as its function is, in a way, similar to the idea standing behind the JHI – it collects and preserves the seeds of rare, endangered, and protected plant species, and its resources are meant to serve the coming generations as a source of knowledge and a testimony to the region’s biodiversity. Since they will be displayed in public in early March, I wanted Symcha Trachter’s Irises and my mockumentary photos of working with seeds to be a harbinger of spring. 

In our digital repository, the object can be viewed in the highest quality.

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Supported by Norway and EEA Grants from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway and the national budget #EEAGrants #Funduszenorweskie #EOG #EEANorwayGrants