Wyspa Institute

The next place we have visited was the Wyspa Institute (http://www.wyspa.art.pl/). Wyspa Institute of Art, founded in 2004 and run by the Wyspa Progress Foundation in Gdańsk, accommodated on the premises of the former Gdańsk Shipyard is the first Polish non-commercial and non-governmental institution of an international profile, devoted to the issues of contemporary artistic culture. Its character and programme grows directly from the specificity of the venue where it is located – its history and tradition, on the one hand, and its projected future, on the other. Bearing in mind many failed revitalisations in Europe, the creators of the Institute apply critical tools, both practical and theoretical, in the assessment of all the phenomena happening around. We have met Grzegorz Klaman who presented us the history of the Wyspa and its current exhibition "Wyspa 3.0 - Map and Territory" - showing 30 years of Wyspa with works by Jarosław Bartołowicz, Kuba Bielawski, Oskar Dawicki, Jarosław Fliciński, Angelika Fojtuch, Grupa i inni (Mira Boczniowicz i Andrzej K. Urbański), Ellen Harvey, Mamet Hektor, grupa Low Res, Elżbieta Jabłońska, Robert Jurkowski, Ania Kalwajtys, Grzegorz Klaman, Tomasz Kopcewicz, Kazimierz Kowalczyk, Julia Kurek, Konrad Kuzyszyn, Leszek Lewandowski, Zbigniew Libera, Jacek Niegoda, Dorota Nieznalska, Hanna Nowicka, Maureen O’Connor, Monika Pudlis, Konrad Pustoła, Anna Reinert, Robert Rumas, Jadwiga Sawicka, Roland Schefferski, Dominika Skutnik, Marek Sobczyk, Jacek Staniszewski, Andrzej Syska, Eugeniusz Szczudło, Michał Szlaga, Grzegorz Sztwiertina, Marek Targoński, Twożywo, Ania Witkowska, Agnieszka Wołodźko, Krzysztof Wróblewski, Piotr Wyrzykowski, Dorota Zgłobicka, Ryszard Ziarkiewicz, Alina Żemojdzin, Artur Żmijewski. 

Laznia Center for Contemporary Art

The participants visited Laznia Center for Contemporary Art (http://laznia.pl/) in Nowy Port - its gallery space, cinema, workshops and residency rooms. 

The Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art was one of the first public cultural institutions established in Poland after the transformations of 1989. It began as an initiative by local independent artists opposed to traditional models of art. Their only chance to realize their projects was to create their own art space – one free from censorship, prejudices, stereotypes and inhibitions. An old and dilapidated former public bathhouse on Jaskółcza street first opened in 1908, turned out to be an ideal space for showing art. In response to a grassroots initiative by artists, in 1998 the Gdańsk City Council designated it a municipal cultural institution: the Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art. 

Łaźnia 2 Centre for Contemporary Art - Centre for Art Education, where, in addition to visiting exhibitions, visitors can take advantage of an art reading room, library, open animation studio, and cinema, and attend a wide range of classes and workshops. 

Alternativa and Museum of Contemporary Art with Aneta Szylak

Aneta Szylak, the artistic director of the Alternativa http://alternativa.org.pl/, has presented the last few editions that took place in the dockyards. Alternativa are constantly seeking new paths of art and its social role. Each year, they undertake activities to strenghten the relations between local context, the problems of the contemporary world, the work of artists and everyday curatorial practice. 

The plans for the new Museum of Contemporary Art was also discussed. 

European Center of Solidarity

The research trip in Gdansk has started in the European Center of Solidarity which has served as a great  and resourceful introduction towards Gdansk context. The ECS is located in the dockyards and presents the most important historical moments in the recent history of Poland - the Solidarity movement and the end of Communism. The guided tour was mainly focused on the historical narrative as well as on its models of display. 

Guided tour at Contemporary Art Gallery BWA Sokół

On Saturday Participants have met with Program Director of BWA Sokół - Anna Smolak, who had introduced Participants to local specificity of the institution and the idea of creating the contemporary art program with reference to the local context. Participants took part in the guided tour on the "Austeria" exhibition held by curators: Anna Smolak and Raluca Voinea.

Opening of "Austeria" at Contemporary Art Gallery BWA Sokół

In the afternoon "Austeria" has welcomed all participants in Contemporary Art Gallery BWA Sokół. 

"Welcome to Austeria, the hideaway, the small and remote place, where so many things can happen during a one-night stop-over: revolutions can be plotted, wars can pass by, people can fall in love or kill each other; tenderness, empathy or aloofness can all melt together in the air of a transitory space at the margin of the world, where geographies become distant and histories come alive. 

Austeria – the exhibition – is an invitation to celebrate with us, despite the grim present and echoes of troubled history, these suspended moments of random encounters, fleeting conversations, shared local customs and forgotten songs, a foretold future that may or may not come to pass."
from the curatorial text by: Anna Smolac and Raluca Voinea

For more information see:
http://www.bwasokol.pl/index.php/pDocId/192/pCmd/1/pMenuId/2/langVer/2

Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki

The third day of workshops began at Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki. Participants have met with the Director Magdalena Ziółkowska and curators of the institution: Anna Lebensztejn, Aneta Rostkowska, Anna Bargiel. The main topics of this meeting were:  creating a collection of contemporary art, which relies on its dematerialization, curating the local, art and activism together with the history of the  institution and its building and current programming. 

Contemporary Art Gallery BWA Tarnów

During the trip to BWA in Tarnów on the 8th of October, the participants had the chance to see the space of the gallery, current exhibitions, permanent projects of the BWA Gallery in urban space in Tarnów and the modern district Mościce. Director of the Gallery Ewa Łczączyńska-Widz together with Aleksandra Kubisztal talked about the history of the gallery and exhibitions from the cycle "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" and "Tarnów. 1000 years of modernity". 

F.A.I.T.

Detour Institution has started!
Yesterday after the official welcoming of all participants, we have visited F.A.I.T. Gallery in Krakow.

F.A.I.T. (Foundation Artists Innovation Theory) was established in 2005 in Cracow. During 10 years of its existence it has repeatedly changed the formula, reacting to the reality in which in which it function and needs of the local artistic community. The primary objective of F.A.I.T. is to stimulate discussion on art and contemporary culture, integrating artistic and critical scene and to promote Polish art in the country and abroad. In pursuing these goals, the Foundation seeks innovative methods of communication and popularization issues of contemporary culture and new methods of reaching the audience. The leading activity of the Foundation is running a contemporary art gallery, realizing exhibitions of the most recent developments in contemporary art. In addition to the activity of the gallery, Foundation is committed to presenting art in alternative spaces, film production and working on an archive of contemporary art. Actively builts an archive of oral history of art in Poland, carrying out a series of interviews with artists and art profesionals active from the 50s till today. In 2012, as a result of a research on the art of the 70s, Fuondation has produced a film "Comes True" dedicated to Jerzy Bereś - sculptor, author of manifestation and outsider of Krakow art scene. Currently, the main area of ​​research of the Foundation is the Krakow artistic community of the 80s.