Bird in Flight Prize ‘19 Finalist: Splinter

Ela Polkowska, Poland

“Splinter” is a story of people living in continuous disorder and about the feeling of uneasiness that their lives provoke.

For a year, I used to visit a family living in a house which should have fallen apart a long time ago. Yet, its residents apparently refused to accept that only order is legitimate in today’s world. They created around themselves a world resembling a warehouse – a space packed with things, whether working or not. Every time I went there, things would change their position, different people were visiting the house, sometimes it was hard to tell who is a member of the family and who is a stranger. It seemed that the continuous change gave meaning to that reality.

At the same time, I had the feeling that something is wrong, that this disorder should have end up with a catastrophe. And, somehow, this happened – the car which was owned by the family crushed, two animals died and the woman left the man and the house.