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for your health!, 5m23s, 2021
"In Polish, 'Na Zdrowie!' (pronounced na-zdro-v-yey) translates to 'For Your Health!'
The phrase 'Na Zdrowie' is so heavily ingrained within my Polish culture, it's second nature whenever I hear it. It was said for toasting at my cousin’s wedding, coming back from church, praying, taught and learned by every visiting tourist and at every one of my birthday parties. Paradoxically, “Na Zdrowie” is the shock of seeing unconscious bodies laying in front of me on the dance floors while the folk band from Zakopane plays each song. Then, those bodies go to church for “confession” before going back to their routine of clinking shot glasses. The priests do the same thing. So do the shrinks.
'Na Zdrowie' brings up the memories of the same parents teaching their children to have a sip of Tyskie beer when they reach twelve-years-old, and their first shot of Żubrówka at seventeen-years-old. It becomes a generational routine for a ritual act of drinking. A generational ritual of normalizing this act of drinking could lead to something worse. Addiction. Or, more like, inherited addiction.
But on the other hand, I love Poland. I love MY Poland. I love her mountains, her folk songs, her smoked cheese, her sense of family, her warmth, her safety, her reassurance, her spirituality and how nurturing she is to me. She reminds me of my recently passed-on maternal grandmother. She raised me and my brother as her own, while both of my parents worked to make ends meet. I looked to her for understanding what it means to be open-minded and willing to unlearn.
Right now, I think it may be time to confront these repressed memories of the drinking culture that is prevalent in my family."
- Introduction excerpt taken from my thesis paper From Grief and Mourning to Reclaiming and Reconciliation (2021).
Statement
For Your Health! is an experimental film that re-evaluates my conflicted relationship with my Polish culture that encompasses Poland's ritualization of drinking culture. Drinking is accessible, normalized and encouraged. The act of normalizing this ritual could lead to something worse. Addiction. Or more like, inherited addiction.
Through the utilized moving text, narrated voiceover, screen recordings, filtered found footage and distorted sounds, For Your Health! retraces my negative associations with my Polish roots caused by the intergenerational alcoholism that was prevalent in my family. It helped me realize how Poland's drinking culture restricted me from seeing its beauty which can be heard from the yodelling highlander choir singing towards the end of the video.
To start with my reconciliation, I am reflecting on parts of my Polish culture that brought me comfort and grieving the parts that caused psychological turmoil in my life.
The phrase 'Na Zdrowie' is so heavily ingrained within my Polish culture, it's second nature whenever I hear it. It was said for toasting at my cousin’s wedding, coming back from church, praying, taught and learned by every visiting tourist and at every one of my birthday parties. Paradoxically, “Na Zdrowie” is the shock of seeing unconscious bodies laying in front of me on the dance floors while the folk band from Zakopane plays each song. Then, those bodies go to church for “confession” before going back to their routine of clinking shot glasses. The priests do the same thing. So do the shrinks.
'Na Zdrowie' brings up the memories of the same parents teaching their children to have a sip of Tyskie beer when they reach twelve-years-old, and their first shot of Żubrówka at seventeen-years-old. It becomes a generational routine for a ritual act of drinking. A generational ritual of normalizing this act of drinking could lead to something worse. Addiction. Or, more like, inherited addiction.
But on the other hand, I love Poland. I love MY Poland. I love her mountains, her folk songs, her smoked cheese, her sense of family, her warmth, her safety, her reassurance, her spirituality and how nurturing she is to me. She reminds me of my recently passed-on maternal grandmother. She raised me and my brother as her own, while both of my parents worked to make ends meet. I looked to her for understanding what it means to be open-minded and willing to unlearn.
Right now, I think it may be time to confront these repressed memories of the drinking culture that is prevalent in my family."
- Introduction excerpt taken from my thesis paper From Grief and Mourning to Reclaiming and Reconciliation (2021).
Statement
For Your Health! is an experimental film that re-evaluates my conflicted relationship with my Polish culture that encompasses Poland's ritualization of drinking culture. Drinking is accessible, normalized and encouraged. The act of normalizing this ritual could lead to something worse. Addiction. Or more like, inherited addiction.
Through the utilized moving text, narrated voiceover, screen recordings, filtered found footage and distorted sounds, For Your Health! retraces my negative associations with my Polish roots caused by the intergenerational alcoholism that was prevalent in my family. It helped me realize how Poland's drinking culture restricted me from seeing its beauty which can be heard from the yodelling highlander choir singing towards the end of the video.
To start with my reconciliation, I am reflecting on parts of my Polish culture that brought me comfort and grieving the parts that caused psychological turmoil in my life.
