Upper Silesia is a region in southern Poland with long historical links to the coal industry. It is marked by the blood, sweat and tears of the miners. Now, designers are taking this «black gold» and turning it into jewellery infused with local ethos.
Upper Silesia, located in southern Poland, is steeped in hundreds of years of mining tradition. The old working-class neighbourhoods, through their architecture and the use of local motifs, remind locals and visitors alike of a time when people worked hand in hand with machines and when Upper Silesia served as a lung of industrial Europe.
It was here that more than 300 years ago, people travelled from all over the country and beyond to access the so-called «black gold».
Beneath this harsh exterior, however, lies a deep cultural history with roots going back hundreds of years. Upper Silesia has its own dialect, which was banned for many years in Poland but survives to this day, as well as a tough material dimension, coal, which is reused in modern times.
As the revival of folklore is becoming increasingly popular in Poland, this valuable export product has become a commodity of very different quality. Coal mined in Upper Silesia since the 17th century has played an important role not only in the Polish economy, but also for the entire European continent. Today, it is turned into jewellery as a symbolic tribute to the land from which it came.
Symbol of hard work and work ethic
In Katowice, the capital of Upper Silesia, there are a few workplaces that turn coal into a different kind of precious commodity: delicate, handmade jewellery. One of them is the brand I Coal You, owned and operated by Katarzyna Depa. Which has been tied to the region for decades.
«Coal jewellery is first and foremost a symbol of the difficulties of mining,’ Depa tells Euronews Culture. »Coal can be not only a raw material for creating heat, but also a rock, which has such emotional value that I hadn't heard of before.«.
Its customers are not only visitors to the area looking for a unique souvenir. But also people from the region itself who see the creations as an opportunity to represent their culture. According to Depa, these include «the miners» daughters, miners' wives and women who moved from Upper Silesia.".
«These jewels have become a symbol of these ties to the region,» he adds.
While the trend of making jewellery from charcoal is modern, like most traditions in Upper Silesia, it has deeper roots. In fact, the first charcoal beads appeared in Upper Silesia in the 19th century. They were made by miners for their beloved wives and girlfriends. As Katarzyna Depa says, these beads were the simplest decorative form that could be used with this material. Thus they made a quick but thoughtful gift.
Nikiszowiec, the district of miracles
At the time she founded the I Coal You brand, Katarzyna Depa was living in Nikiszowiec. A district in Upper Silesia, on the outskirts of Katowice. Although now it is a place where you are more likely to meet a group of tourists than a group of miners. But you can still feel the spirit of the past in the remaining apartment buildings. This is where the miners who came to Upper Silesia to work spent their lives.
«What fascinated me most about coal is this work ethic and the respect» that people have for it, Depa says. She appreciates the close ties this raw material has with the cultural history of the region.
This respect for this raw material, with which Upper Silesia fed itself and the whole of Poland, is the point. Katarzyna Depa founder of the brand “I Coal You”
«I saw it myself when I lived in Nikiszowiec. »This ethos, this respect for this raw material, with which Upper Silesia feeds itself and all of Poland, is what is needed.« However, despite the respect Poles both within and outside the region have for coal, Depa argues that it has not been sufficiently exploited as a tool for art-making.
«Jewellery is a beautiful medium and something that can give us joy,» he tells Euronews Culture. «When something is so ordinary, it is easy to forget it, but the presentation of this coal in the form of jewellery also gives us the impression that if there was no coal, then nothing would be here.».
Coal has a cultural and material heritage in Poland. But also a natural heritage, linked to the country's underground landscape. The fact that each piece of coal is different from the others means that the coal itself is equally unique. As Depa points out, jewellery made from coal is meant to pay respect to labour that is often undervalued.
«I always recommend everyone to go to the town of Zabrze to see the Guido mine. How is the burden of work in the mines,» he says. He adds that this can allow people to «appreciate the fact that they can sit in front of their computer and deal with different issues».
«Silesian girls have coal where their heart should be»
Recently, many small shops selling local produce have sprung up in Upper Silesia, making the area a distinct brand. Phrases written in the once forbidden Silesian dialect now appear on the sides of bags. Or on signs outside local bars. The statues of Upper Silesian folk demons are known as «beboks». They are also often found as street decorations in the streets of the region, similar to the statues that adorn French Gothic cathedrals.
One of Poland's most famous bands, Myslovitz, has sung songs about Upper Silesia. But the mining landscape is also depicted in dream paintings by Grzegorz Chudy. A painter who is known both locally and nationally.
Even though the mines have long since ceased to extract coal on the huge scale they once did, coal remains a permanent feature of the Silesian landscape.
“Charcoal hearts were once in vogue. It has even become common to say that a girl from Silesia has anthrax instead of a heart. That she has a heart of coal,” says Depa. Adding that “Silesia is so special, compared to Warsaw, Wroclaw, Poznan, Gdansk or even Krakow. You can see it in the way people use the Silesian dialect. In the efforts to make Silesian a recognised minority language and in the promotion of Silesian culture.”.
«There are so many elements that very strongly characterize its specificity. But at the same time there is this great satisfaction of the “different”, this particularity associated with Silesia,» she says.
“Polish highlanders wear coral beads,” says Depa, “beads that are not from Poland. They come from Italy. There are also pieces of turquoise from the Turkish wars that were taken to the Wawel Treasury. But also amber. You have to go to the sea and count your lucky stars that the sea will bring you a piece of it. But we can have coal here and now, we can dig it up. And that's probably the most beautiful thing about it. After all, coal is just beautiful as a rock.”.
Source: euronews.com
