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Monument of Solidarity

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mightywease
mightywease
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5 out of 5
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Roads to Freedom Solidarity Exhibition

  • November 22, 2006
  • Rated 5 of 5 by mightywease from Carshalton, United Kingdom
Roads to Freedom Solidarity Exhibition

The Roads to Freedom Exhibition was opened to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the August Agreement and the birth of Solidarity. It is housed in the BHP Hall of the same Gdansk shipyard where the events of August 1980 took place.

The exhibition begins outside the hall, walking through the old shipyard, where two sculptures/gates by the artist Grzegorz Klaman invoke a ships prow and skeleton. Inside the first gate are two LED screens along which words of communist dogma and propaganda flow on one while words of protest slip along the other.

Around the outside of the hall are large photographs showing events of August 1980, not just dramatic montages but also simple scenes of striking workers greeting their families, eating, smoking and taking part in the church masses which were held in the shipyard. Indeed it was the latter which were perhaps the most evocative as it really brought home that these were ordinary working people standing up for their - and others - rights and freedom.

Also just outside the BHP hall is an armoured carrier used to suppress protest during Marshal Law. Indeed inside the exhibition one of the most shocking and memorable images is of water cannons spraying from such a carrier onto people in the streets which we had been walking along a little while before.

Inside the hall the multimedia exhibition charts the resistance to communist rule, such as the protests in Poznan during 1956 and Gdansk 1970, through the birth of Solidarity, the imposition of Martial Law and, finally, the coming of democracy.

Much of this is done through first hand testimony from those involved, strikers, politicians and also, for instance, the artist who created the Solidarity symbol. In one of the first rooms a very thorough history of protest is shown via computer terminals – allowing you to view pictures, video and text at your own pace. In later rooms are a reconstruction of the room where the August agreement was debated and signed, two wooden boards on which are handwritten the 21 demands of the strikers, which are now included on UNESCO’S World Heritage List for their humanitarian and libertarian values. Later rooms concentrate, via video displays, reconstructions, and artifacts, on life under Martial Law when Solidarity and protest was forced underground. Finally the last room shows the legacy of August 1980 - and later 1989 - as communist rule began to crumble and the map of Eastern and Central Europe was re-drawn.

It is an absolutely fantastic exhibition with just so many highlights. Interesting, informative, extremely well informed, moving and hopeful. The latter is, I feel, the lasting, wonderful legacy of August 1980 and the birth of Solidarity – it gave so many people hope. And hope is a commodity that is always needed and should always be valued.

The exhibition is housed in the former Gdansk Shipyard No. 2.
Open from 10am to 5pm, Tueday through Sunday, closed on Monday.

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