On dreaming and borders | Maja Zawierzeniec | TEDxWarsawWomen

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Maja Zawierzeniec talks about life at the border among different cultures and languages, as well as about crossing social and mental borders providing examples of Mexican prominent female figures.

University lecturer, specialized in the field of Mexican studies, at present Maja is concerned with the creative capital of Mexico and the correlation between violence and modern Mexican art. Since 2009, she organizes meetings of young Mexican artists México Joven all around the world. And is also interested professionally in the cultural-business relationship between China and Latin America, new technology in education, methods of foreign language teaching, and quality management in higher education.

[Maja Zawierzeniec:
"On Dreaming and Borders"]

Leonora is not a poet,

she's a walking poem,

which all of a sudden opens an umbrella,

which unexpectedly becomes a bird,

that afterwards turns into a fish

and disappears."

This is how Leonora Carrington,

a Mexican artist of British origin,

was described by one of her friends.

Leonora lived at the border
between different worlds:

cultural, linguistic and mental.

This is what I want to talk about today.

About borders,

borders and dreams,

dreams at the border
and borders of dreams.

Over the last several years,

I visited the United Mexican States

more than ten times.

Since the year 2001,
when my first visit took place,

Mexico came to be my mental homeland.

I feel very well there
and perceive some kind of magic,

which I'm not able to feel in Europe,
no matter how beautiful it is.

Additionally, due to my work,

and because of my personality,

I also feel myself on the border
among different worlds:

academic, student,

formal, informal,

business and cultural.

Borders are usually associated
with something negative

with being on the verge
of something stressful and dangerous.

But borders also imply something else:

When we are at the edge of some space,

we can "jump" to another one

and get to know new territories.

When we are standing steadily

on whichever space,

it's difficult to "jump" to the new one.

I also think that the ability
to cross borders

is even more useful in the private life
than in the professional one,

as it lets us look

at some situations

from different points of view

and feel less fear,

when we are stepping out
of our comfort zone.

Approaching the border
helps us to change the perspective.

There may be a lot of borders:

physical, linguistic,

cultural, intellectual;

we can also have mental borders.

And it is about these borders,
in the Mexican context,

that I'd like to talk about.

When we think about Mexico
and the border,

we automatically imagine the borderline

between Mexico and the United States,

the area portrayed in the media

as dangerous, destructive, full of violence.

However, this border has another side:

it is a place of a rich cultural

and social exchange.

A place of social symbiosis:

there are a lot of people and families,

who cross and enrich
this border every single day.

Also, a lot of Mexicans living in Poland,

or Polish people visiting Mexico,

have told me that in spite of
a large geographical distance

between our countries,

we have a lot of common mental features.

It teaches us that physical borders

may be illusory.

If we talk about
linguistic and cultural borders,

we intuitively feel
that every new language

is a key to unlock a new culture.

But I think that a language is much more:

it enables us to create reality,

and shape the world around us.

I would like to illustrate this
with the example of Malinche.

Malinche, or Doña Marina,

was a companion and translator
of Hernán Cortés,

who conquered Mexico in the 16th century.

As a very young girl
she was sold to the Maya people

by her mother, after her father's death.

She herself came from the Nahua tribe.

This way she learnt another
important Mexican language.

She was among several captive women

given as a present to Cortés,

arriving at the Mexican coast.

From the first official
translator of Hernán Cortés

she learnt Spanish.

Malinche is seen
as a controversial figure in Mexico,

because sometimes she is thought of
as a traitor to the nation.

In my view, taking into account
the social and the historical context

she was compelled to live in,

this statement is not necessarily true.

Furthermore, we could assume

that her mediation was the reason that

the conquest of Mexico was less bloody.

This way the figure of Malinche,

a woman who lived in the 16th century,

teaches us that a language is not only
"a door to another culture,"

but also a means to shape the reality,

and therefore participate more actively

in the social life.

If we talk about intellectual borders,

let's take an example

of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

Sor Juana Inés was
a Mexican Baroque poet.

She became a nun, since monastic life

a bit more easily than other social contexts

in the 16th century Mexico,

allowed a woman to study.

And Sor Juana was a "child prodigy."

Since her early years, she put
a lot of effort in understanding,

learning and personal development.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
is famous for saying

that we can learn in every situation.

She also authors
another celebrated statement:

"Had Aristotle cooked,
he would have written a great deal more."

This figure teaches us

that intellectual borders
also can be surpassed.

This is how we approached the last border,
probably the most difficult:

the mental, psychological border.

Here our guide will be
Rosario Castellanos,

a Mexican writer

concerned with the topic of native people.

She was also a member of
the Mexican diplomatic corps,

and an ambassador in Israel.

In her play "The Eternal Feminine"

a peddler visits a Mexican beauty salon

regularly offering technical novelties
to the owner.

This time he brings a special device
for a hair dryer,

a big one, of the old sort.

What is this invention meant for?

For occupying the heads,

literally and metaphorically,

of the clients.

Some of them go there
several times a week.

With their heads under the dryer
they get bored,

and boredom, as is well known,

can lead to a socially dangerous activity:

thinking.

This new, wonderful invention is tested

on an ideal client:

a naive young girl,

full of hope, about to get married.

In this Mexican beauty salon

she dreams a socially correct dream,

in which she turns from
a young, energetic person

into a frustrated,

sad housewife.

Rosario Castellanos' play

shows us that we can
go beyond the mental borders.

And the irony helps us disarm

the negative social schemes,

which we often grow up with.

Cultural, linguistic,

mental borders

were experienced by three Mexican,
not completely Mexican women,

three surrealist painters
of European origin,

who created their works in Mexico:

Alice Rahon, Remedios Varo
and Leonora Carrington.

Alice Rahon, in her paintings,

mixes the French surrealism

with the color of the Mexican soil.

She portrays herself
as Alice in Wonderland,

a literary character
drifting between worlds.

In her works, she also
pays tribute to Frida Kahlo.

This second painting represents

her vision of the Mexican world.

Towards the knowledge, and the unknown
is where Remedios Varo,

of Spanish origin, drifts as well.

Her painting "Exploration of the Sources
of the Orinoco River"

portrays a young woman in a small boat,

sailing to the unknown.

We can tell that Remedios Varo herself

was aware of living, being

on the verge of two different worlds,

which can be verified
in her self-portrait:

on one side we can see her face,

the connection with the real world,

on other side there is a mask,

symbolizing the belonging
to the surrealistic world,

to a different world.

And the last, yet very interesting figure:

Leonora Carrington, of British origin,

to whom the first quotation referred.

Leonora Carrington died only two years ago,

at the age of 94 in Mexico City.

Her paintings show

the connection with the world of magic,

the world of animals,
the world of intuition.

I'm the President

of the Polish-Mexican Cultural Association

Bocian&Nopal.

The projects we carry out are meant to
familiarize Polish people with Mexico,

and convey certain ideas,

that we can learn
from the Mexicans in general

and the Mexican women
I mentioned.

That language is the key
to unlock other cultures,

that can shape and change the reality.

That we can go
beyond intellectual borders,

and that, in fact, we are the ones
who limit ourselves.

That mental borders and social "devices"

put by the society

into our personal "hair dryers"

can be disarmed with irony.

In everyday life, when we say
that something is surrealistic,

we think that it is unreal,
and hard to accomplish.

But maybe freedom and crossing borders

can actually take place

if we feel more at ease,

if nothing is limiting us.

It happens when we sleep and dream.

Lawrence of Arabia once said

that all the people dream,
but not in the same way.

Most of the people dream by night.

They wake up and see
that their dream is gone.

But he said that there are
also these dangerous people,

who may act their dreams
with open eyes

in the daylight

to make them possible.

Life is a dream,
so let us dream consciously.

Thank you.

(Applause)