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Calling Magda by Magda Ksiezak

Children's television serves a purpose that goes far beyond simple entertainment. The stories, characters and worlds of kids' TV leave an indelible mark on our memories and help to shape our childhoods. For Magda Ksiezak, it helped her to find her place in the world (and the schoolyard).

We invited six artists to create a new work based around their relationship with Australian kids’ TV and the culture of their formative years. Celebrated as ‘fan art’, the artists explored their memories of ACTF stories across a broad range of mediums. The works were a vehicle to revisit the screen stories of their youth and examine the lasting impact children’s television had on their childhoods and, as adults, their artistic practice.

Here, Magda Ksiezak discusses how children's television impacted her childhood and inspired her work, 'Calling Magda'.

Magda Ksiezak

Calling Magda, 2022

Paper, tape

How did our television content shape your childhood experience?

Without a doubt my childhood was shaped by television and in particular children's TV content aired in the after school time slot. The shows were a portal into another world for me, something reliable and a cherished routine that inserted familiarity into my adolescence - a safe haven from the awkward years of primary school.

Being an immigrant and always feeling slightly on the outer was something I recall feeling quite a lot of in my younger years. Children's TV shows, especially shows like Round the Twist were a way I felt a connection to kids my age without having to fumble through social interactions. They were grounding because I didn't feel quite so alone and in a way, my awkwardness felt normalised.

I think it's also safe to say that a lot of the shows were pretty creative and imaginative in their storytelling - without a doubt formative and a space to encourage creative thinking. Lift Off! and Round the Twist were so out there; The Copy and The Cabbage Patch Fib are stand out episodes for me and the theme song of Round the Twist still makes my belly turn with excitement.

Tell us about one of your fondest and strongest memories of watching Australian television.

I must have been about 12. My sister and I had just been to the local shops where we bought $3 worth of hot chips. We get home and the chips are soft and floppy. I steal some and run away to the TV room to watch Ship to Shore. It's funny that a lot of TV shows are also interlinked with after school snack foods in my mind. The two are closely paired for me and when I think of certain shows I can almost taste certain flavours.

How has ACTF content influenced your art practice?

I think overall the influence is about play and storytelling. Being exposed to ACTF content that was so open to imaginary worlds was formative. There were no wrong ideas and the weirdness was embraced. I also have to say that colour was a strong influence on me. Johnson and friends have burnt primary colour combinations deep in my brain.

Describe your artwork and the story behind it.

I chose Spellbinder as the TV show to focus my piece on. I'm not sure how popular it was but it definitely had an influence on me at the time. It's about two parallel worlds that open up to one another and the main character gets stuck on one side. One world is set in Australia and one filmed in Poland - my birth country. I remember when I first came to know that after seeing the end credits, all of a sudden I had an overwhelming feeling of connection and pride. I was mostly used to hiding my Polish background - as a kid you I didn't really want to be different or stand out. The actors in the show were close to my age and in a funny way I felt this sense of empathy as I was also living in two worlds. Australian at school and Polish at home.

I remember making an Eye Stone (kinda like a hand held radio) for myself out of a travel magnetic chess board and using it to play and run the imagination into hyper drive. This piece for me was about being able to make a more realistic version of the Eye Stone and champion it with graphic elements and paper components. I wanted to make an image that was bright and bold and use the Eye Stone as a tool for communication back to my 13 year old self.

I'm not sure how I feel about what I would like others to take away from this work. Spellbinder in itself feels like a niche TV show to me or maybe that's because I recall feeling so insular with my experience of it. If anything I hope that it evokes interest in what the show was about... after all, it's still available on Netflix.