The key symbolises knowledge and success, including protection against intruders. Only the owner of the key can unlock the door. Equally, in Bak’s canvases we should find the key, the imaginary key that invites us to unlock the Mystery: the artist hints that it is an opportunity for each of us to unlock our own source of happiness (whether it be bright memories or other things that are only important to us).

We can also be angels in the great and small things in life, in our decisions and in amity. Bak reminds us that, in critical circumstances, we must first be guided by humanity. Invites you to dare to see and recognise the failures of the world.

Every living tree is a separate world worth cherishing. The uninhabited landscapes by Bak con-tain floating stone islands with clumps of trees. They are always nearby, sheltering or threaten-ing when they are not cherished, undercut or growing on sliding slopes.

The chessboard depicted in Bak’s artwork is broken, cracked, and crumbled as if hit by an earthquake. It is a metaphor for the unpredictable flow of life: a person, who is constantly walk-ing on unstable land, must use all their abilities of rational thinking and take risks as if they were the bishop or horse pieces in the game of chess. They must feel when and which squares to jump and when to stay in place, or to retreat. A person must be prepared all the time.

No matter how precisely we plan our lives, let’s not forget that there is always a factor of surprise. And let’s leave room for a miracle. The universe revolves like a dreidel. It is not clear where it will stop.

In the Vilna Ghetto, two well-known Yiddish writers Avraham Suckever and Shmerke Kacherginsky entrusted Bak with the 19th century chronicle of the Jewish community – pinkas – so that he could learn to draw on the blank pages of an old folio (after all, there was no paper). Pinkas was also used to register the good deeds of the members of the community: how much the wealthy doled out to the widow or how much they donated to a young orphan in the form of a dowry. Through community efforts we ‘fix’ the world, ‘glue a broken vessel’.

Let’s take a look at the landscape of an abandoned city: smoke is coming from the chimneys of the crematorium in the distance and the ruins of the old town walls have already been overshadowed by plants. This is the city after the catastrophe. The grave that has slightly fallen into oblivion in history. But it can happen again, now, if we hate the different and abandon humanity.

Adam and Eve tasted the pear of knowledge and were driven out of paradise. They lost paradise, but survived – gained experience, knowledge and became parents to humankind. If we survived, then we have the opportunity to write our history afresh. History is always written by those who win, it is the privilege of the winners.