A Palm in Warsaw

October 11, 2019 2:39 PM

The video in the There is a city... post from earlier today included a brief shot of a palm tree. The city in question was Warsaw, so the sight of a date palm so far north is surprising. This tree, however, is an art project created in 2002 by contemporary artist Joanna Rajkowska called Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue as a memorial to Warsaw's Jewish community.

The project initially met with some resistance, partly from the administration, partly due to current cultural attitudes that don't welcome radical or different ideas - the tree also invokes "the idiomatic expression that Poles use to describe something unthinkable, something outside of reason, something idiotic - "palma odbiła" / "hit by a palm tree". But since its creation the public has come to accept the unusual artwork, and although the original plan was for a one-year exhibit it has remained standing. Earlier this year the tree "died" temporarily to draw attention to climate change; it was subsequently restored.

(Lots more history and details in the above links)

posted by Greg_Ace (3 comments total)

I was wondering about that! It made me question my whole shiz because I was like "well, obviously it's not poland, what's the mediterranean country whose flag is red and white and uses the roman alphabet?"
posted by Jon_Evil at 5:08 PM on October 11, 2019

Yes! me too! That's what spurred me to look into it, and the answer was so gratifying that I had to share the story.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:08 PM on October 11, 2019 [3 favorites]

Very cool. Thanks for posting.
posted by Mchelly at 10:08 PM on October 15, 2019