Paradise. (1-1/1)

A work from mid-1980s. Again, Zbigniew Libera used a ready publication, which he revised and gave it a stronger and more readable meaning; he extracted its traits that often go unnoticed. In Paradise the artist used a fragment of a Soviet children's book. The work presents a scene froma typical publication of the Soviet publishing house “Malysh”, where the world is ordered and works according to carefully planned schemes, and the sense of happiness is every citizen's obligation.

Presence of nature may suggest a day free of labour; children hapily frolic in a beautiful garden. („This is a garden. In a garden apple, pear and plumtrees grow.”) polarised and schematicised social roles are assigned (“Father works in a garden. Father has a shovel. He digs.”, “Mother works ina garden. She gathers apples.”)
By this simple task of giving a new name, Libera changes the whole context of children's book. It becomes and element negating the top-down planned order, whose main treats are ironically exaggerated, thanks to what the meanings are being transported. The happiness in a garden can mean the compulsory labour, the gender roles division – discriminating against every otherness. The garden itself becomes a laboratory, where every individual, shut in rigid notions of “collectivity”, “social order” and “generally understood happiness”, is being subjected to sociological experiment.