Exploring Gozdowo. Gallery posted on cultural animation site.

We walked the line in Wrocław. This was the concept of artist Mirosław Bałka, invited by the Borderland Foundation to create a particular moment
as part of the ‘New Agora’ – an International Academy on Intercultural Dialogue.

A tightrope spans the path that leads to the door of the White Stork Synagogue, in the process of restoration after decades of ruination. Sitting in a courtyard behind Włodkowica, in the District of Good Neighbourhood, this is a neo-classical building that dates back to 1829. Participants at the ‘New Agora’ gather one evening to learn to walk the line, guided gently yet firmly by circus artist Ante Ursic. Eyes focus on the end of the rope, balance on one foot, then change to the other. Let your toes guide the way, grip the line, a line that vibrates with a particular intensity. If you fall off, don’t worry, it’s not so far to fall. Get straight back on the line and continue; again and again until you reach the end of the rope. Back on the line, even if you are only 10 cm away. “Sorry,” Ante says, “but I’m traditional.”  Find your balance and walk – or no supper in the Rynek, they joke (or perhaps not). You then assist the next person, walking alongside the apprentice rope walker, hands barely touching in the air - as Ante insists, you do not hold on or grip. 

This particular activity takes place for two hours, so all participants can walk the line once, twice, and then back again. Mirosław seems happy with the way his concept is realised. There is a café and a bar here, in this courtyard, and these onlookers watch pensively. Some join in with the conference participants. Here we will sit and drink hot chocolate with cherries to celebrate this ‘action’, but what might this ‘action’ represent? To be persistent, to try again, to not try for one moment and then give up.  Or perhaps the crossing of a border, in between a physical space and a cultural divide, between the precarious balance and the effect of gravity, along the thin line between right and wrong, between competing ideas or groups.

To walk a tightrope - to act very carefully so that you avoid either of two opposite bad situations; between choices that conflict, especially where pleasing two different people is the goal, you may have to walk a tightrope.

To draw the line – to proscribe or set the limit of, to separate one thing from another.

To toe the line – to abide by the rules, to conform; to do what you are ordered or expected to do.

To cross the line – to go too far, when your behaviour is considered to be unacceptable in your peer group, or to go beyond ‘social norms’.

To hold the line – maintain the existing position or state of affairs; in trade union disputes, do not let them pass the picket line.

To walk the line – to take care not to deviate from the straight and narrow.

‘I Walk the Line’ is also a song written by Johnny Cash. Recorded in 1956, it was one of four hit singles featured on his first album, Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar.

Gallery from the New Agora in Wroclaw posted, along with further information about the work with Borderland. 

Episodes 42 - 48 of Zero Siedem added.