Hi, I'm Veronique. I'm a settler Canadian of Polish descent, living on the stolen and occupied lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. My work spans performance creation, dramaturgy, and education, as well as mental health peer support and advocacy. Click here to learn more about me.
I've created this archive as part of a larger project, Szepty/Whispers, which uses my family history as a starting point for exploring inherited silences. My mother grew up in Soviet-controlled Poland, during a time of seismic social and political upheaval. After escaping from her homeland, she rarely spoke about her past and its far-reaching impacts. As I attempt to articulate my ways of being in the world, which have been labeled as mental illness, I find myself seeking out her silences. What can absences, ambiguities, and contradictions transmit across generations? How do these transmissions enable survival, resistance, or complicity? Beyond this archive, Szepty/Whispers includes an online collection of documentary traces from my mother's life and an in-progress performance. Szepty/Whispers has been developed at Playwrights Theatre Centre as part of the Associates program. The project has also received support through the National Theatre School of Canada’s Art Apart initiative, Boca del Lupo and Rice & Beans Theatre’s DBLSPK series, mentorship with Boca del Lupo’s Artistic Director Sherry J. Yoon, the Arts Club’s LEAP Playwriting Intensive, and the Wet Ink Collective. |