In Keczupowo (PL for ‘Ketchuptown’), Natalia explores the complex relationship with her town of birth, Włocławek in Poland – a place she used to visit regularly during her childhood. The heart of the film is based around her ambivalent experience of nostalgia and alienation when being in Włocławek. In Keczupowo Natalia reinvents her memories of this place by reenacting them together with family and friends in Belgium. The deliberate theatricality of the film tears through the veil of magic, highlighting the unstable nature of memory. The trzepak – a carpet-cleaning rack commonly used in Poland – provides the basis for the installation. Natalia projects her film Keczupowo into the structure and in doing so, an everyday object becomes a window into the past. In her childhood, the trzepak served as a playing tool, a screen on which to project fantastical dreams of the future. Here it serves that same purpose once again; in the same frame she presents her film, in which fiction and reality are interwoven. In this way, Majchrzak creates a dialogue between past, present and future.
In 2026, Natalia has created an addition to the film installation, in the form of objects on the wall. These represent the traditional ‘Fajans’ paintings which origins’ date back to the 19th century in Wloclawek. By mixing tradition and folklore with modernity and fictional elements, a new mythical narrative is formed in which these 2 time layers exist together. The objects were painted by friend-artist Sarah Buniowski. Sarah’s work also evolves around the re-imagining and revisiting of the Polish cultural identity. Through this way, a Polish local tradition gets rewritten, leaving us with the question how a culture shapes the understanding or alienation of an identity and how a lack in the past becomes a longing in the presence.
shortfilm – projection in ‘trzepak’ metal structure- 14’ – color – digital 4K – Polish spoken language with English subtitles – speakers – painted ceramics and ketchupbottle
Keczupowo has won the public vote at ECCE Film Festival 2023 at Mino Art Space and got selected for Videonline Festival at La Centrale Brussels 2024, Eclats Film Festival 2024 at Beursschouwburg Brussels & Museumnacht 2024 at Lumière Cinema Antwerp. Showing at FOMU in context of .tiff program selection, from 28th of June until 28th of September 2025. Currently showing at Circulations Festival in Paris
Natalia Majchrzak 