Kucie kos (Forging the Scythes)

Wojciech Fangor’s painting Forging the Scythes fills the entire wall of a small room at the Museum of Warsaw. It is the main protagonist of the empty, quiet surrounding space. In the small room, the painting’s dynamic composition and intense colour almost explodes with imagined sounds: the clamour of cast metal, the tired voices of the smiths, the hiss of flames... 

At this year’s Warsaw Autumn, modern music gives a particularly strong statement as a citizen’s medium, engaged in public and social issues as well as offering an expression of personal identity. Forging the Scythes, dedicated to the 1863 Uprising, is a good context for featuring electroacoustic works that address social resistance against oppressive power.