On the occasion of the Polish EU Council Presidency, the European Alliance of Academies organised a diverse programme to focus on the newly emerging art and cultural landscape in Poland. Artistic and discursive contributions were dedicated to the questions of how years of restrictions imposed by the PiS government affected artistic freedom.
7.04.2025
Academy President Manos Tsangaris and Katarzyna Sitko, Deputy Director of the Polish Institute Berlin, opened the event. They claimed that artists have a crucial role when it comes to political protest. Institutional representatives, artists and cultural professionals discussed how the Polish art and culture scene is dealing with the ongoing political changes. A special focus lied on the role of women in the cultural political transformation process and the impending disillusionment of Polish women regarding their fight for reproductive rights.
The reading from Joanna Bator’s latest novel “Gorzko, Gorzko” added the literary sound and made women voices heard, going through different eras of Polish history. The sound performance “Rebirth” by Anna Sowa echoed the challenges that women are facing in today’s world.
A highlight of the programme was a conversation between award-winning film directors and Akademie members Agnieszka Holland and Volker Schlöndorff on their personal experiences in the fight against nationalistic policies and narrowed world views. When asked about what Europe would mean to her, Agnieszka Holland replied that Europe always had a double meaning – the cradle of human civilisation as well as the place of many crimes against humanity. About her latest movie “Green Border”, that was screened after the discussion, Agnieszka Holland emphasized that even though she was not allowed to show the human catastrophe going on at the border between Belarus and Poland, she reconstructed it by making a movie. “When something like that is going on close to my home, I have the duty to talk about it.”
The theatre performance „JaWa“ by artist duo Turkowski & Nowacka displayed different societal problems such as homelessness, alcoholism, but also the will to individual change and the role of art in it. The story is told from the artists perspective, but the two core workers of JaWa were Jan and Waldemar (and the name of the enterprise comes directly from their first names), who found this job after several difficult chapters in their lives. „The show’s creators combine documentary images with an ironic narrative and moments that completely abandon irony, as in the scene with the difficult personal confession, which is the emotionally heaviest one in this strong, multidimensional performance.“ (Przemek Gulda). The piece has been created as part of residency programme at Komuna Warszawa, co-financed by the City of Warsaw within the Culture Hub project, with support of Stowarzyszenie Teatr Kana Szczecin; Co-production Noorderzon / Grand Theatre Groningen.
An event organized by the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and the European Alliance of Academies in cooperation with the Polish Institut Berlin. Funded by the Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation.
Supported by the Daniel Chodowiecki Foundation, the Goethe-Institut Warschau, Villa Decius Association and the European Film Academy.