The art of omission. About how the city doesn't see the village

However, the problem begins erstwhile the city not only describes itself, but besides begins to describe the planet from a position it considers natural and universal. erstwhile his position becomes the measurement of the whole. erstwhile what is urban begins to appear modern and what is non-urban – late, provincial or at most “to catch up”. That's erstwhile something comes up that I would call the art of omission.

A city that tells itself

The city likes to think of itself as a work of art. As a space designed, significant, dynamic, modern. Not only does it be but it besides constantly talks about itself: architecture, facades, the rhythm of the streets, the pace of life, communication, access to culture, cafes, museums, squares and parks. The city wants to be watched. I want to be read. I want to be interpreted. This communicative has aesthetics, politics and aspirations. There is simply a desire to be a center – not only on the map, but besides in the imagination. Like a image suspended in a typical hall, the city cares about composition, light, position and way of seeing the viewer. He takes care of what attracts sight. More often, he wonders about what this sight holds up: over the frame, the blubber, the easel, the wall on which the painting hangs, and the hand that erstwhile prepared it for viewing.

There's nothing incorrect with that. Indeed, the city is 1 of the most interesting human inventions. It is in it that institutions, ideas, conflicts, energy, creativity and change focus. It is most frequently the scene of modernity. However, the problem begins erstwhile the city not only describes itself, but besides begins to describe the planet from a position it considers natural and universal. erstwhile his position becomes the measurement of the whole. erstwhile what is urban begins to appear modern and what is non-urban – late, provincial or at most “to catch up”.

That's erstwhile something comes up that I would call the art of omission. It's not about public exclusion. It's a more subtle mechanics and it makes it more permanent. It is that certain spaces, experiences and social groups are not straight rejected, but simply moved beyond the main staff. They inactive exist, they are inactive needed, they proceed to execute crucial functions, but they cease to be treated as an equivalent part of the communicative of community, improvement and modernity. In art, it can be that the most crucial thing is not only what is painted, but besides what sustains the anticipation of painting itself. The image does not be without a subfigure, without a stretched canvas, without a workshop, without a studio. Yet, the delight of the finished work almost never speaks of what was his material condition. The city is similar.

The village remains besides frequently in Polish realities outside of this frame. Not only as territory, but as social reality. As the space of millions of lives. As an area of experience that does not fall into the dominant urban language of success. The village can be seen selectively: erstwhile it is essential to talk about agriculture, elections, protests, subsidies, folklore or weekend rest. Much little so erstwhile we talk about the quality of the state, the model of development, the inequality, the right to public services or the dignity of everyday life.

It's not a coincidence. This is the consequence of the hierarchy of visibility, in which the city remains a privileged point of view, and the village, even if present, is very seldom a full-fledged entity.

Village as background, not partner

The city does not be by itself. Its strength, attractiveness and functionality do not come from vacuum. Each city has its own facilities: spatial, social, economic, environmental. It has its suppliers, commuters, carers, workers, food producers, service providers, labour reserves, energy and land. It uses a network of links that you can't see in postcards or promotional folders. The city likes to talk about its own cause, but its everyday life is besides based on what it itself does not produce.

In this sense, the village is not an addition to the city. He's not his sentimental background either. He's 1 of the conditions of his operation. It provides food, space, environmental resources, people who work in cities but live outside them, as well as areas into which the city pushes any of its own improvement costs. It is in the countryside and suburban areas that houses are located not only for those who cannot afford to live in the centre, but besides for warehouses, infrastructure, roads, logistics centers, investments requiring space and "remove" from urban aesthetics. The village is not just the background of the painting. It is besides its frame that sets the limits of composition, and an easel that carries the weight of the full show. It frequently remains invisible, although without it the image of the city would not last for a moment.

Yet, this dependence is seldom told honestly. The city is eager to usage the village, but much little willing to consider it a partner in defining the common good. The village then appears as a back-up – needed, but subordinate. Useful, but poorly prestigious. At best as a functional space, at worst as an area not adapted to modern requirements.

This is 1 of the most enduring stereotypes: identifying villages exclusively with agriculture (which I wrote a fewer numbers ago). Meanwhile, the modern village is much more complex. It has long been no longer just an area of agricultural production. It is simply a place of life, work, services, education, care, entrepreneurship, migration, access, recreation and environmental functions. It is diverse – there are dynamic, well-communicated and developing areas thanks to the proximity of cities, but there are besides those that face a permanent shortage of services, depopulation and mediocre transport availability. The village is not uniform. This is 1 of the most crucial truths that urban communicative frequently refuses to see, due to the fact that a simplified image is more convenient.

The art of omission is to simplify it. In reducing the village to 1 function, 1 image, 1 label. But simplification is simply a form of symbolic violence. It's devoid of subjectivity. He's picking up complexity. It makes it easier to describe someone, but harder to truly see.

Exclusion begins with invisibility

Social exclusion is most common in terms of income, unemployment, poorness or limited access to institutions. Of course it's important. But exclusion besides has a symbolic dimension. Sometimes it starts with not deficiency of money, but deficiency of space in the communicative of who is simply a full associate in the community. Not from physical absence, but from absence in language, imagination and hierarchy of attention.

You can't permanently marginalize those you truly see. Therefore, silence is the first phase of exclusion. First, any experience is considered peripheral, little modern, little interesting, little cognitively and politically relevant. Only later is it easier to ignore them in designing public policies, in distributing services, in discussing improvement or in the media image of the world.

The village knows the mechanics well. For years, she was either romanticized or paternalized. It was either shown as a space of authenticity and tradition, or as a habitat of backwardness, conservatism and delays. Both of these paintings are convenient for the center, due to the fact that they both take the village's right to be something more complicated. In the first case, the village is aesthetically “beautified”, but is besides immobile in the costume of tradition. In the second – recognised as an area that should catch up with the urban model of life as shortly as possible. In both shots, it is not treated as an equivalent modern space, but as a decoration or a delayed version.

However, symbolic exclusion has concrete social consequences. If any problems are not at the centre of attention, it is easier to respect them as little urgent. If the experience of agrarian residents is not treated as a full state quality test, transport exclusion, deficiency of access to specialised wellness care, educational problems or the limited presence of cultural institutions can be further ignored. If everyday life outside large centres does not become part of the main communicative about Poland, then its shortcomings can be presented as the natural cost of geography alternatively than the consequence of political decisions.

Invisibility is so not neutral. It's a form of selection. It's a way of spreading attention, so besides respect. And in democracy, what remains poorly visible is usually besides little represented.

Urban monopoly on modernity

One of the biggest problems of Polish reasoning about improvement is to identify modernity with urbanity. In this diagram this city is the laboratory of the future, and the village is the space to catch up with this future. Success means promotion to the center, moving to a larger centre, adopting the urban lifestyle, urban consumption patterns and urban cultural code. Violentness becomes something to be thrown off, overcome, left behind.

This reasoning model has been very strong for decades. During the systemic transformation, improvement was easy identified with concentration of capital, services, infrastructure and aspirations in large centres. They were expected to be the carriers of modernity. It was from their position that success was told. The village remained a background – a place that can benefit from growth diffusion, but itself is not considered as a origin of crucial developmental designs.

However, specified reasoning is not only a simplification, but besides an analytical error. Modernity doesn't gotta have 1 shape. It doesn't always should be metropolitan, spectacular and concentrated. It can besides manifest itself in the capacity to build local resilience, in maintaining social ties, in flexible forms of adaptation, in the multifunctionality of space, in combining tradition with the pragmatic of modern times. The village doesn't should be modern erstwhile it becomes citylike. It can be modern in its own way.

The problem is that the urban viewpoint very seldom allows specified a conclusion. A villager can be judged according to standards he did not make himself. Its regular life is combined with a life model based on the density of services, advanced mobility, closeness of institutions and concentration of opportunities. Then this structural difference turns into a qualitative or even moral assessment. individual lives outside the center, so they're expected to have worse access due to the fact that they made little modern choices. But frequently it's not about choice, it's about conditions. About housing costs, about the labour market, about household history, about inheritance of resources and limitations, about availability of transport, about rooting, about the structure of local opportunities.

Daily geography of inequality

If we truly want to realize the relation between the city and the countryside, we request to decision from symbolism to everyday life. This is where it is best seen that territory is inactive fate. The place of residence inactive has a strong impact on access to public services, the labour market, education, health, transport and culture. These differences are not just a substance of comfort. They frequently decide on the quality of life, the possibilities of promotion, the sense of dignity and real participation in society.

In a large city, many things happen almost “at hand”. School, clinic, office, cultural offer, public communication, labour marketplace – all of this is closer, more dense, more often. This does not mean, of course, that urbanity in itself solves the problem of inequality. Cities besides produce poverty, spatial segregation, housing exclusion and the full spectrum of class inequalities. But they have 1 structural advantage: concentration. And the concentration of resources gives advantage to those who are within its reach.

In agrarian areas and tiny towns, everyday life is more frequently organised around shortages. deficiency of connections, deficiency of facilities, deficiency of alternatives, deficiency of time to travel to get to what is apparent to a large city. Transport exclusion here is not a method problem for the organisation of the bus line. It is simply a mechanics of reproduction of inequality. It restricts access to work, education, health, social life and culture. It is peculiarly hard on older people, young people, women with care work, people with disabilities and those who cannot afford full individualisation of mobility.

The same is actual of wellness protection. It's not adequate to number the number of facilities. 1 has to ask how much it costs to make a temporary and logistical effort to scope them. Who can go to a specialist without losing a full day's work? Who has a car, who has to drive, who can pay a private visit, and who remains dependent on uncommon deadlines and long commutes? In theory, a citizen has the same right to benefits regardless of his place of residence. In practice, access geography inactive spreads the odds unevenly.

The same applies to education, culture and care services. The closure of a school or library in a tiny town does not mean simply moving services to a larger centre. It frequently means weakening the local community, extending the distance to institutions, expanding dependence on transport and another signal that certain places are not worth maintaining full social infrastructure. economical rationality can be merciless here, but portraying it as a neutral management method is abuse. There is always a question behind it about whose needs we consider crucial adequate to organize public institutions around them.

The city sees the village erstwhile it needs it

The relation between the city and the village is not a relation of simple separation. It's more of a relation arrangement with unequal recognition. The town sees the village, but most frequently erstwhile it is needed. erstwhile it comes to food prices, food security, farmers' protests, political preferences, investment areas, real estate, leisure, ecology or landscape. Much little so erstwhile the experience of agrarian residents should be treated as an equal benchmark for assessing the quality of the country.

This selective imagination speaks not only of the village, but besides of the city itself. His cognitive limitations. About his tendency to respect his own needs as universal. How easy the center forgets that it is not the full world, but only its privileged fragment. In this sense, the art of omission is not simply a problem of symbolic representation. It's a power problem. Who decides what's important? Whose everyday life becomes a measurement of normality? Whose problems are formulated as public and whose as local and secondary? These questions do not concern simply the aesthetics of the description. They concern the structure of the political community.

So if the city does not see the village, it is not due to the fact that it is far away. frequently the other – the village is very close, sometimes just outside the administrative border, sometimes in the area of regular commutes, sometimes in the very core of the city's supply system. Invisibility is not the consequence of distance. It's the consequence of the hierarchy.

There's no good communicative about a town without a fair communicative about a village.

If we want to take the subject of the city seriously as a work of art, we request to ask a question about its blind spots. Each work has not only composition, but besides cuts. Not only light, but besides what was deliberately left in the shadows. Not only the visible first plan, but besides the conditions of its own existence.

The city can be an area of creativity, freedom, ambition and change. It can be a place of intense social life, experimentation and modernity. But it will not become a credible work of the community if it continues to build its own image at the expense of those it pushes beyond symbolic staff. This is not about a sentimental turn towards the state or about opposing the village to the city. It's about restoring proportions. To admit that modernity cannot be measured solely by the measurement of the centre. That improvement is not full if it remains blind on its own. That a political community is not fair if any of its citizens see only erstwhile they request their work, land, voices or landscape.

The village is not a footnote to modernity. It's not a delayed version of it either. It is 1 of the areas where the quality of democracy, solidarity and states is determined. It is there that it is easy to see whether improvement means real expansion of opportunities, or just concentration of success. It is there that we are able to think of Poland as a whole, not only as a collection of well-lit centres and little noticeable peripheries.

This is the art of omission: not on open rejection, but on elegant silence. On specified a composing of the image, so that what is necessary, but uncomfortable, remains outside the frame. A city that wants to be truly modern should be able to grow this framework. He should see that beyond his staff there is no emptiness or anachronism, but a complex social reality without which his own communicative would be incomplete.

Because there's no good communicative about a town without a fair communicative about a village.