Getting out of the house. An ordinary activity, like going out to do some shopping or to take a walk? Or getting out metaphorically – separating yourself from your family home? Such separation is not easy when you are leaving a home full of contradictions – a place that is both a shelter and a prison, a place that is both cosy and uncomfortable.

Soft Spot is Michalina Kacperak’s personal story. Born in 1993, Michalina is the oldest of four daughters of an alcoholic. Having lived in a dysfunctional family for years, she felt the need to share her experience. She was inspired by the courage and imagination of her youngest sister Zosia, now thirteen years old. At first, Kacperak photographed mostly for herself. She wanted to hug herself as a child.

Zosia has created a safe world for herself in a menacing home. She has turned her room into a colourful shelter. For years, she has covered its walls with drawings, created structures from colourful yarn and pieces of popped balloons, and filled the small space with countless dolls, figurines, toys and games.

The room had resonated in Kacperak for months before she realised that Zosia’s gestures mirrored her own experiences and that, through the place, full of ready-made metaphors, she could tell her own story. Initially, she simply documented the space. Then she began to create her own installations by transforming the original compositions. She quickly began to provoke various actions with Zosia, which led to a breakthrough – jointly made portraits of their father.

Each family member responds differently to Kacperak’s work. The sisters support her immensely, contributing their own ideas. They also work – in a creative way – through their own traumas. Asia, two years younger that the artist, is an actress, and Zuzia, who is twenty years old, makes animated films. To Kacperak’s surprise, the father has accepted his daughter’s actions with understanding. Only the mother feels uneasy about the project. This shared experiencing of the artist’s work affords it another dimension – a therapeutic one.

Confronting the subject of your father’s addiction and growing up in a dysfunctional family requires great courage and openness, especially in Poland, where alcoholism tends to be downplayed, treated as a taboo, shamefully swept under the carpet. However, a long-awaited change is observable in society. The young generation, especially women, are starting to speak out about their experiences. Their voice reverberates in literature, notably in such books as Mireczek by Aleksandra Zbroja or Dom w butelce. Rozmowy z dorosłymi dziećmi alkoholików (House in a bottle. Conversations with adult children of alcoholics) by Magdalena Kicińska and Agnieszka Jucewicz.

Michalina Kacperak’s work makes a vital contribution to visual arts. Invisibility and absence keep recurring in the story, highlighted by the ostensibly sweet aesthetics of the photographs. The artist weaves a multi-faceted narrative about a world in which no one is who they should be. The adults are children and the children are adults. And yet no one in the story is unambiguous. Although Kacperak feels anger, irritation, sorrow, she is also compassionate. Rather than blaming or excusing anyone, she seeks to understand how the machinery behind her family works. She also wants to close a certain stage of her life, to get out of home. Most importantly, however, by exploring her own and Zosia’s experience, she strives to make the message of children of alcoholics heard.

Participants: Michalina Kacperak (PL)
Curators: Inga Brūvere (LV)
Text: Katarzyna Sagatowska (PL)
In cooperation with: gallery Jednostka (PL)
Image: Michalina Kacperak, from the series Soft Spot, 2021