What Are Our Collective Dreams? Global Connections — Abandoned Friendships ✨ 17.10.2025 – 08.02.2026 🎉 opening: 16.10 Thursday, 7:00 PM Zachęta – National Gallery of Art Curators: - Taras Gembik - Joanna Kordjak - Antonina Stebur Contemporary works by: - Aravani Art Project - Arpirellas - Oliwia Bosomtwe - Oksana Briukhovetska - Minerva Cuevas - Galas (Vladyslav Gryn) - Nadira Husain - Hamlet Lavastida - Marysia Lewandowska - Ibrahim Mahama - Amy Muhoro - Marina Naprushkina - Thuc Linh Nguyen Vu - Ahmet Öğüt - PUNTO ESPORA | La Ciudad Abierta - Alicja Rogalska - Laila Shawa - Janek Simon - Marta Romankiv - Weronika Zalewska Historical context: - documentation from the Zachęta archive - Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende - arpilleras from the Conflict Textiles collection at Ulster University in Northern Ireland - works from the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw Graphic design: Kaja Kusztra The program for the opening weekend (17–19.10) will be announced soon. The exhibition opens the archives of Zachęta to revisit the networks of global artistic relations during the era of the Polish People’s Republic. Contemporary artists confront these histories with the present, asking what remains of the “internationalist friendships” from before 1989 and how they might shape our imagination of a shared past. The starting point of the exhibition, which features both contemporary works and historical materials, is a critical reflection on a forgotten chapter of the cultural policies of the Polish People’s Republic, carried out by Zachęta (then the Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions), as well as the role of cultural institutions today. The exhibition focuses on Poland’s artistic relations with countries of the so-called global majority — including Latin America, India, Vietnam, and Palestine. Central to this is the concept of “internationalist friendship” and its infrastructure. This friendship was ambivalent — an expression of emancipatory and unifying aspirations, but at the same time based on dependencies related to the exploitation of natural resources, cheap labor, and violence. The exhibition’s authors turn to the past not to idealize it, but to — by recognizing its complexity — consider what it can tell us today about the present and possible scenarios for a shared future. In the history of these international friendships, abandoned after 1989, there is a visible potential for art as a tool of political resistance and solidarity. The curators — together with invited artists and activists — ask questions about the role of cultural institutions in the context of the growing ethnic and national diversity of Polish society, in times of increasing xenophobia and mechanisms of exclusion and discrimination. They encourage us to see today’s Poland as a space open to many voices, languages, identities, and experiences — a place where diversity is not a problem, but a condition for shared life. At the same time, they try to imagine a cultural institution that would be not only a space for presenting art, but above all a place for dialogue and collective reflection. The exhibition presents historical works and documents as well as works by contemporary artists from various regions of the world (most of the works were created especially for this exhibition). Institution financed by: - Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Supported by: - Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts Patron of Zachęta: - ORLEN The exhibition is held under the honorary and partnership patronage of the Embassy of Chile in Poland and the Honorary Consulate of Chile in Wrocław Project partners: - Goethe Institut - Yes Foundation - Akzo Nobel - Dulux Professional Media patrons: - artinfo.pl - K MAG - TVP KULTURA The exhibition is supported by the British Council as part of the UK/Poland Season 2025. Ibrahim Mahama’s work was created with the support of the OmenaArt Foundation.
