SOKOLE FOLK HOUSE

- history
- sokole cinema
- future

history
In the North Knyszy?ska Forest, there is a Polish-Belarusian village of Sokole. In the 18th century it had a Jewish inn (by the then-important Bielsk-Zab?udo?Lw-Gro?Ldek-Grodno route). In the 1930s the village built the beautiful Pi?sudski Folk House with the help of local landowners, Poles, Byelorussians, Jews and Germans. It housed a school and dancing parties. During WW II it was used by armies. After the war, the building was used as a center for the centrally-controlled socialist culture. All those events bore a mark on the house. Today, it stands empty, with broken windows and the wind running through shreds of diplomas for communist leaders of labor. The Jewish inn or the German industrialist?fs house are remembered only by the eldest citizens.

sokole cinema
In the summer of 2006, we ran a playhouse in Sokole. Young people removed rubble and glass from the building. We renovated the film projector from the inoperational cinema in the nearby town and installed it in a makeshift movie room in Sokole. For older viewers, it brought back memories of mobile cinemas from the 1950s, for younger ones was an interesting event, like watching ghosts come alive.
The films were old: pre-war Polish melodramas, Soviet propaganda films, old chronicles and animations for kids.
Every Saturday, the movie room was full and after the film there was an integration party with live folk music (Polish, Belarusian, Jewish)!

This summer in August, the Sokole Cinema was operating too. This time we show films on the mythical escape from civilization: a "Dersu Uzala" Akiro Kurosawa, the newer Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog. The boys were building a tree house.
Under the supervision of Andrzej Zaleski, Dawid Kosiarkiewicz and Bart Qzniak (3Metry band) children walked in a forest, listen to ewerything and... played beautifull free jazz concerts.

You are welcome to visit us next summer!!!

future

Association of Cultural Education WIDOK along with the local government of Michalowo Commune has put forward an initiative to create in Sokole Folk House a new center for culture and landscape preservation. We aim at creating a place for meetings and participation in culture of both the local community, the tourists visiting our region, as well as the artists and specialists in many fields from Poland and abroad invited to take part in our projects.

Exemplary future actions:

1. Building modernization ?| modern design on the basis of a historical structure. Construction process combining the local tradition and modern technology of environment-friendly building. An up-to-date account of construction progress on our web site, which shall provide a starting point for our future educational activity.

2. Starting a carpenter?fs shop (in cooperation with local institutions of vocational education) where traditional ornaments for wooden buildings could be crafted, and prototypes of objects designed during art workshops, by designers and art school students, could be realized. Setting up a specialist team of professional builders for renovation of old wooden structures.

3. Planting a garden modeled on traditional home orchards and flower gardens; seasonal sales, exchange of seeds and seedlings.

4. Organizing concerts and other cultural events.

5. Scientific conferences devoted to history and culture of the region and the strategies of its development.

6. Nonstandard art classes for local residents and the visitors.

Project by:

Agnieszka Tarasiuk

e-mail: agnieszkatarasiuk@go2.pl

phone no.: (++48) 601 182 208