English (UK) 
Polski 
The discussion will focus on the programmes and practices of newly established and reimagined art institutions in Poland at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will look back to the time when their establishment, missions, or transformations were first being conceived. We will discuss predictions about the future of art formulated within the institutional ecosystem of the time. Which assumptions proved wrong, and which were put into practice and carried forward? What will the art of tomorrow look like? Can institutions in Poland realistically – and not just in theory – serve as catalysts for new artistic developments?
Guests: Piotr Krajewski, Anna Łazar, Piotr Stasiowski, Jarosław Suchan
Moderator: Joanna Sokołowska
BIOS
Piotr Stasiowski – curator, art critic, and director of the National Museum in Gdańsk. From 2006 to 2011, he was director of BWA Wrocław – Contemporary Art Galleries; from 2012 to 2014, he served as chief curator at the Wrocław Contemporary Museum; from 2015 to 2024, he was director of the Gdańsk City Gallery. He has curated over 40 exhibitions and authored numerous articles published in books and the press.
Piotr Krajewski – curator and author specialising in new media in art. He led the Programme Team responsible for establishing the Wrocław Contemporary Museum (2007–2008). He is a co-founder and artistic director of the WRO Media Art Biennale and chief curator of the WRO Art Center. He has curated exhibitions in Poland and abroad and is the author and editor of books and publications on media art. He has served as a visiting lecturer at institutions in Europe, the United States, and Japan. He has participated in international projects and conferences addressing issues in art, curatorial strategies, and contemporary cultural creativity. He graduated in cultural studies from the University of Wrocław and completed fellowships at, among others, the Art Institute of Chicago and the MIT Media Lab. In 1994, he introduced the course “New Media Art” into the curriculum of the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Wrocław. He currently lectures at the Department of Intermedia at the University of Arts in Poznań and the Department of Art Mediation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław.
Anna Łazar – curator, writer, translator, and director of the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw. She has worked in public and cultural diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, serving as deputy director and acting director of the Polish Institutes in Kyiv (2008–2014) and Saint Petersburg (2015–2018), as well as curator at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź (2021–2022). She is also a member of the Women’s Archive team at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN). She has curated numerous exhibitions and publications on contemporary art. Her research interests and curatorial practice focus on contemporary Ukrainian art and literature. She has co-curated exhibitions including Revolutionary Experimental Space. History at the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv (2024–2025), Observe This Moment – How It Convulses at the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok (2024), Distant Tolerable Murder in Berlin (2022), and What a Fabulous Place We Are In at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź (2022). She was also curator of the Free Word international artistic collaboration programme as part of Gdańsk City of Literature (2022–2024).
Jarosław Suchan PhD – art historian, curator, cultural manager, Doctor of Humanities, and lecturer at Jagiellonian University. From 2006 to 2022, he served as director of the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź. He has curated numerous exhibitions on modern and contemporary art presented at venues including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Fundação de Serralves in Porto, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, the Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz, the Moderna Museet in Malmö, and the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw. He is the author of numerous texts on the avant-garde, modernism, contemporary art, and museology, published both in Poland and abroad. He has edited monographs on the work of Władysław Strzemiński and Katarzyna Kobro, Tadeusz Kantor, the Polish-Jewish avant-garde, and avant-garde museology.
Joanna Sokołowska – curator and coordinator of the MWW Collection Department. From 2010 to 2021, she worked as a curator at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź. She is the author and editor of numerous publications on contemporary art. She has curated exhibitions addressing issues such as post-communist transformations of labour, labour and gender, and ecological imagination. Selected exhibitions include: Renewal. Zielona Góra Biennial 2022 (together with Marta Gendera and Bartek Lis); Work, Work, Work (Work). Céline Condorelli and Wendelien van Oldenborgh(in collaboration with Daniel Muzyczuk), 2021; United Pangea, 2019; Exercises in Autonomy. Tamás Kaszás featuring Anikó Loránt (ex-artists’ collective), 2016; All Men Become Sisters, 2016 all presented at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź; as well as For beyond that horizon lies another horizon (Edith-Ruß-Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg, 2017) Another City – Another Life (Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki i przestrzenie publiczne, Warszawa, 2008).