Project: Upiór
This project by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute seeks to gather sources on Polish folk demonology from digitised collections, and their renewed use by artists. The source of the idea was Anna Szylar, who pointed out a key problem in Polish culture: the lack of a reference on Polish folk beliefs that was both credible and generally available, allowing people to tap into their huge potential for creating stories, illustrations and games, which can achieve global popularity.
Upiór is first and foremost a project that collects and systematises information in the Polona digital library, which contains a rich body of material from the classics of Polish ethnology. It turns out that the folk reports set down in the 19th century show an exceptional supernatural world; understanding it is of great help in understanding the culture and literature of 18th- and 19th-century Poland.
The collected reports, stories and ethnographic works provide ready materials for artists, allowing the creation of a series of illustrations by artists including Maciej Sieńczyk, Julia Mirny and Joanna Concejo, as well as Kajetan Obarski’s animation Strzygas and how to handle them, narrated by Adam Strug.
The next phase is the editing of entries and sources on Wikipedia, which will make the effects of the project open and available to all.