Paper short abstract:

Orange Alternative - the quintessence of "Socialist Surrealism" and connection of life and art - is a unique example of how a movement can socially and politically shape people and places. Its phenomenon can be seen as one of the world's influential currents in the history of civic disobedience.

Paper long abstract:

Orange Alternative is an artistic underground movement connected with the history of struggle against communism, which was started in 1981 in Poland by Waldemar Fydrych, the charismatic leader of the movement. According to some features of the Dutch Provos movement of the late 1960's and strongly influenced by surrealism, Orange Alternative painted absurd graffiti dwarfs on city walls, which became its symbol and was one of most picturesque element of Polish opposition. The movement particularly active in the period 1985-1989 was the purest expression of "Socialist Surrealism", directly challenging the state on the streets. It combined playfulness with a ruthlessly tongue-in-cheek approach that consistently wrong-footed the authorities, such as in 1988, on the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, when 4000 people marched through Warsaw chanting "We love Lenin". After the demise of the communism, Orange Alternative did not die, just changed the targets. The movement was reactivated in 2001 in the happening "General Meeting of the Dwarves" and stands now against the gray background of the globalised capitalism omnipresent in social and political spheres around the world. Since then Orange Alternative became a transnational movement being also active outside of Poland, e.g. in France, Germany or by supporting the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004. Today, considering three decades, Orange Alternative can be judged as one of the unique examples of peaceful opposition and an independent artistic movement. The presented paper is based on a master thesis and concerns a combination of discourse and ethnographic field analysis including biographic interviews.