Let’s organise our future!

The first edition of Biennale Warszawa will be held between May 24 and June 30, 2019—it is an interdisciplinary event devoted to designing the future, expanding the horizons of socio-political imagination and testing positive alternatives to current solutions. Biennale Warszawa comprises 56 events, over 100 presentations in 16 locations across Warsaw. Tickets and the programme are available at biennalewarszawa.pl and goout.net.

During the 39 days of the Biennale’s events we would like to reflect together on the world in which we all want to live: what relationships we would like to foster, what decisions we should make and how to positively respond to the major challenges of today and tomorrow.

The list of co-creators of the programme Let’s organise our future! is long. It includes over 400 names. The list features researchers, intellectuals, theatre creators, visual artists, composers and musicians, curators of performative and visual projects, representatives of activist communities from Poland and abroad, and residents of Warsaw, including children, youth, and foreigners working and living in Warsaw.

In May and June 2019, all these people invited to join the collective preparation of the Biennale programming by the curators will organise and participate in 56 events. As many as 41 out of these events were planned especially for Biennale Warszawa. The BW2019 programme is divided into four blocks: direct democracy, democratic education, transnational metropolis, and transnational solidarity. The comprise theatre performances, concerts, exhibitions, lectures, conferences, workshops, tours, film screenings, congresses, conventions and debates. 108 presentations, 16 locations.

The presentation spaces will be located in the Biennale Warszawa headquarters at Marszałkowska 35/40 as well as on scenes and in locations of partner cultural institutions: Nowy Teatr, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Teatr Powszechny, TR Warszawa, U-jazdowski Centre for Contemporary Art, Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN, Museum of Praga. The activities of BW2019 will be organised also in places in Warsaw which may be less obvious for the audience: an empty school building on Skaryszewska street, on the marketplace on Namysłowska street, on Kijowska street, on the route from Muranów to Śródmieście, at the Castle Square, the W-Z Route and the Constitution Square.

For over a year we have been wondering together what our future should look like, how it can be organised, what institutional forms would be the most appropriate in order to go beyond the apocalyptic visions of the future which dominated our political, social and cultural life. During this year’s edition of Biennale we make another step, and through artistic activities we begin to collectively create alternative organisations and institutions which will be able to propose a different view of the future, based on such values as democracy, progress, solidarity. Therefore, the list of programme collaborators and existing partners institutions which work with us already should be expanded to encompass the list of newly-designed organisations. These will include: a new artistic cooperative, an international organisation of women eco-farmers, a different university, a new socio-educational facility, a transnational union, an organisation for the cooperation between Eastern Europe and countries of the Middle East and North Africa, a community choir, a grass-root cultural institution, a transnational artistic ensemble and a social forum.

Creating an entire range of organisations capable of continuous, permanent work in various areas of our lives is not easy, and it constitutes one of the greatest challenges for an interdisciplinary institution such as Biennale Warszawa. Organisations and institutions will emerge which will have to be supported and developed. A small institution with a small team will not be able to achieve that on its own. This is why the programme motto Let’s organise our future! is also an encouragement and invitation to collaborative action.

Selection of events:
Polish Social Forum
May 31–June 2
Direct Democracy: Forum

East European—North African—Middle East Forum
June 9, 10am–6pm
Transnational Solidarity: Forum / assembly

Convention of Women Farmers
June 14–June 15
​Transnational Solidarity: Forum

Transunions
June 22, 11am–7:15pm
Transnational Solidarity: Forum / assembly

Find out more about our programme and news at www.biennalewarszawa.pl/en.