Palm Reader

First appearing in the middle of December, 2002, Rajkowska’s artificial palm tree in the center of Rondo de Gaulle’a lit the touchpaper for a horde of artists to follow in her wake and experiment in public, whilst simultaneously handing the city a work that would become every bit as iconic of the post-communist capital as the skyscrapers blooming upwards.

Initially erected as a temporary project, the idea for the Palm – or ‘Greetings From Jerusalem’ to award it its formal title – was coined during a trip that the artist undertook to Israel. “The palm is the ending to a text that has never been published,” says Rajkowska. “It seemed that Warsaw, with no proper Jewish community, was painfully empty – as if one chamber of its heart was missing.”

The 15-metre, steel-bodied palm sought to fill that void, yet despite now being a much-loved part of the city’s skyline, it originally met with much resistance. “It divided people dramatically at the time, to the extent that I heard about one family in Kielce that couldn’t finish their Christmas dinner because of an argument about it,” smiles Rajkowska.