In the first week of September, Wrocław Contemporary Museum invites you to celebrate its fifteenth anniversary. Together, we will explore the building and the history of the museum, creating a space for speculation about what MWW’s artistic shelter is – and what it could be. We have prepared discussions, installations, meetings, concerts and performances that will offer a chance to talk about the museum’s future. On Friday evening, we will transform the exhibition space into a dance floor, with people known for “making” art taking to the decks.

MWW opened to the public on 2 September 2011 in a building on Strzegomski Square constructed during the Second World War as an air-raid shelter. From the outset, it has shaped its identity around the concept of the Museum of Current Artdeveloped by the art critic and theorist Jerzy Ludwiński in 1966. According to his vision, the museum was to be a catalyst for new “artistic facts".The unrealised institution was to be housed in the underground passages of Bastion Sakwowy fortifications in Wrocław. Almost half a century later, work began on the revitalisation and adaptation of another space with a military heritage, which became MWW’s temporary seat. 

Ludwiński’s programme inspires us to discuss utopias, but also the actual conditions and possibilities for running a museum of contemporary art in Wrocław. We also draw on Wrocław’s tradition of “open theatre” and “open art” – the concept of transforming the everyday into a creative act. We are guided by the mission of an institution rooted in neo-avant-garde traditions, which responds to the present and shapes visions of the future.We plan MWW as an “open museum.”

We wish to initiate a discussion about the museum as a responsible institution, a space for collaboration and one that is open to experimentation. How should we engage with its architecture, history and collection? How can we build lasting relationships with local communities and the public, and how can we develop the museum’s international network? What might the museum of the future look like?