The curators of the NARRACJE festival in 2023 in Orunia announced

We already know who will prepare the program for the NARRACJE festival in 2023. From among the submitted applications, the commission chose the concept of ‘Tender Points’ by the curatorial duo: Katarzyna Słoboda and Jakub Gawkowski. The 14th edition of NARRACJE will be held on the 17th and 18th of November 2023 in the Gdańsk district of Orunia. As every year, the festival is organised by The City Culture Institute and the Gdańsk City Gallery.

Katarzyna Słoboda is a curator, researcher and doctor of humanities. She works in the Department of Modern Art at the Museum of Art in Łódź, where she curated exhibitions such as Time Out of Joint (2022), Prototypy 4: Slip/Osuwisko, Agata Siniarska (2020), Come, we’ll show you what we do. On Dance Improvisation (with Sonia Nieśpiałowska-Owczarek, 2013) or Frames of Reference. Choreography in the Museum (with Mateusz Szymanówka, 2016) and others. She is an editor and author of publications on dance, choreography, avant-garde and contemporary art. Winner of the Grażyna Kulczyk research scholarship in the field of contemporary choreography and the Mloda Polska 2018 scholarship. Member of the Common Space initiative.

Jakub Gawkowski is a curator and art historian associated with the Art Museum in Łódź. A graduate of the Central European University in Budapest. Curator and co-curator of the Atlas of Modernity exhibitions. Exercises (Museum of Art in Łódź, 2021), The Earth is Flat Again (Museum of Art in Łódź, 2021), Agnieszka Kurant. Errorism (Museum of Art in Łódź, 2021), Die Sonne Does Not Shine Like the Sun (Kunsthalle TRAFFO, 2020), Diana Lelonek. Buona Fortuna (Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, 2020), The Most Beautiful Catastrophe (CSW Kronika, 2018). A research fellow of the DAAD theMuseumsLab program in 2022.

The curators of NARRACJE 2023 in Orunia were selected by the jury: Dorota Jarecka (art critic, curator, runs the Studio Gallery in Warsaw), Anna Królikiewicz (artist), Waldemar Tatarczuk (curator), Aleksandra Szymańska (director of The City Culture Institute – festival organiser), Piotr Stasiowski (director of the Gdańsk City Gallery – co-organizer of the festival).

– I was most convinced by the concept of ‘Tender Points’, I find it intriguing, fresh and open to a number of new threads, bringing back more elements of projection and light, as this festival has in its tradition. At the same time, it is open to post-humanist, queer ideas: I gave my vote to give all this a chance to work in Orunia, says Anna Królikiewicz. Dorota Jarecka, in turn, draws attention to the selection of artists proposed by the curatorial duo, as well as the coherence of the idea: – The concept of Katarzyna Słoboda and Jakub Gawkowski ‘Tender Points’ not only contains a promising set of names of artists starting their careers or in their early stages, but is also characterised by coherent program concept. Tender points today are primarily environmental issues and topics related to the discussion on differences of classes, nations and regarding gender.

In the selected curator’s concept, we read: ‘Tender points are places that require attention. The ones that reveal their energy, relationships, and multi-layered stories if you take time and look closely at them. The proposed curatorial concept of the NARRACJE festival assumes finding the existing and creating new tender points on the map of the Orunia district. (…) Both the places of exposition of the artistic works and the experience of the route between them are crucial for the concept of the festival. This formula of the event will allow building new forms of agreements, relationships and engagement with the audience, going beyond active creators and passive viewers. Installations, multimedia and interactive artworks, as well as performative and ephemeral activities taking place throughout the festival, will serve to build a collective experience and carefully observe Orunia – its history, architecture, social and natural tissue.

14th edition of the NARRACJE Festival. Installations and interventions in public space will take place on the 17th and 18th of November 2023

Previous curators and event locations:

NARRACJE #1, Collective Memories, Gdansk Main City, 26.11-6.12.2009, curator: Bettina Pelz

NARRACJE #2, Lost and Found, Gdansk Main City, 18-21.11.2010, curator: Bettina Pelz

NARRACJE #3, Natura miasta / Nature of the City, Gdansk Lower City, 17-20.11.2011, curator: Bettina Pelz

NARRACJE #4, Czyś odeszła, ukochana zjawo? / Art Thou Gone, Beloved Ghost? Gdansk Main and Old City and the Shipyard, 15-18.11.2012, curator: Steven Matijcio

NARRACJE #5, Odkrywanie zachwyca / Unearthing Delights, Długie Ogrody, 15-17.11.2013, curator: Rob Garrett

NARRACJE #6, Mędrzec i duch / The Sage and the Ghost, Upper Wrzeszcz, 15-16.11.2014, curators: Anna Witkowska i Adam Witkowski

NARRACJE #7, Przemytnicy / The Smugglers, New Port, 20-21.11.2015, curator: Anna Smolak

NARRACJE #8, Królestwo 60,8 m n.p.m / The Kingdom 60,8 m asl, Biskupia Górka, 21-22.10.2016, curator: Stach Szabłowski

NARRACJE #9, Poza sezonem / Off Season, Brzeźno, 17-18.11.2017, curator: Anna Czaban

NARRACJE #10, Słońca w ciszy były jak wielki śpiew w zenicie, Oliwa, 16-17.11.2018, curator: Piotr Stasiowski

NARRACJE #11, Działania terenowe, Siedlce, 15-16.11.2019, curators: Sylwia Szymaniak i Sarmen Beglarian

NARRACJE #12, Gdańsk 2080. Kongres futurologiczny, 22-23.10.2021, Lower Wrzeszcz, curators: Karina Kottová i Piotr Sikora

14th edition of the NARRACJE Festival. Installations and interventions in public space will take place on the 17th and 18th of November 2023. Earlier, on the 18th and 19th of November 2022, NARRACJE will be hosted in the Przeróbka district of Gdańsk.

Organiser: City Culture Institute | Co-organiser: Gdańsk City Gallery

www.narracje.eu

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