Necessary Wishes
June 12–August 13, 2026
Running from June 12 through September 13, 2026, across Prague and Pardubice, Czech Republic, the fourth edition of the Biennale Matter of Art unfolds under the title Necessary Wishes. Conceived as one of the leading platforms for contemporary art in Central and Eastern Europe, the biennale examines forms of endurance, solidarity, and collective imagination emerging under conditions of political, economic, and social instability.
Curated by Jaroslava Tomanová, František Fekete, and Jakub Gawkowski, the biennale approaches “necessity” not only as a condition imposed by crisis, but also as a practice of resistance and survival. Across three venues—the Trade Fair Palace of the National Gallery Prague, GAMPA—City Gallery Pardubice, and Tusculum Prague—the programme brings together more than forty artists and collectives whose works engage questions of vulnerability, interdependence, labour, care, and political agency.
Among the participating artists are several figures working in Poland and supported by Adam Mickiewicz Institute, including Nadia Markiewicz, Cezary Poniatowski, Liliana Zeic, Cezary Bodzianowski, and Szymon Adamczak, alongside the Warsaw-based Ukrainian collective GALAS (Taras Gembik, Vladyslav Gryn), Zoi Michailova, and Yana Bachynska / Jan Bačynsjkyj.
Their practices articulate different material, social, and affective dimensions of post-transformational experience in Poland and the wider region: from Markiewicz’s engagement with normativity and bodily difference, and Poniatowski’s polystyrene reliefs shaped by the material afterlives of the post-1989 transition, to Zeic’s queer ecologies of care and Bodzianowski’s fragile assemblages composed of discarded everyday matter. Adamczak’s work addresses transnational queer activism and political dramaturgies of solidarity, while GALAS and Bachynska / Bačynsjkyj examine displacement, wartime experience, and collective support structures emerging in response to ongoing violence and migration.
Organised by tranzit.cz, the biennale continues to develop a feminist institutional model grounded in accessibility, collaboration, and care, positioning art as a response to ongoing political, social, and economic crises.
Artists: AntiGonna, Noor Abed, Szymon Adamczak, Željka Aleksić, Gleb Amankulov, David Apakidze, Yana Bachynska / Jan Bačynsjkyj, Jürgen Baldiga, Leila Basma & Zaher Jureidini, Rufina Bazlova / Stitch It Collective, Ștefan Bertalan, Cezary Bodzianowski, Tina Bxtq, Michal Durda, Jan Durina, Fůd, GALAS (Галас), Hana Garová, Laďa Gažiová, Davyd Chychkan, Nosrat Karimi, Seba Kayan, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Adrián Kriška, Běla Kolářová, kroužek intersekce, Isadora Neves Marques, Nadia Markiewicz, Zoi Michailova, Shabu Mwangi, Aron Neubert, Aliza Orlan, Bronislava Orlická & Zuzana Smrkovská, Taring Padi, Cezary Poniatowski, Publik Universal Frxnd, Margaret Raspé, Nour Shantout, Shella Radio, Alex Sihelsk*, Felipe Steinberg, StonyTellers, Alina Sokolova, Fedir Tetyanych, Huda Takriti, Liliana Zeic, Jiří Žák.
