The exhibition by Maryna Tomaszewska “WAW. WOMEN'S CITY, WOMEN'S STREETS” will be on display from 19 September 2025 to 22 February 2026 at the History Meeting House (Dom Spotkań z Historią, DSH) at ul. Karowa 20 in Warsaw. The exhibition is curated by Joanna Warsza.
WGW 2025: the exhibition is presented as part of Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2025 in the WGW+ section. WGW+
Every second person living in Warsaw is a woman or identifies as such, yet this is not reflected in urban planning or street names. Warsaw has 5,800 streets and squares, of which about 20% are named after specific people. More than 1,300 are named after men and only around 150 after women; these are often dead-end streets or small alleys.
The exhibition invites visitors into one of those alleys. Installed within the context of the DSH, the installation overturns the invisibility of women on city plaques by presenting feminist statistics, gender textile-maps, and detailed biographies of invisible matriarchs, who are most often found in less central districts like Białołęka or Targówek. The exhibition points to the huge asymmetry in the historical-cultural narrative regarding gender representation in public space, while opening a reflection on what a feminized public space would look like and what women and non-binary people could contribute to urban planning.
This so-called “data gap” is described by Caroline Criado Perez in the book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. The author shows that the way narratives are constructed has fundamental importance for perception and for the social and cultural mechanisms in which we operate — in Warsaw, Hamburg and Kyiv. The exhibition and the book ask how to think about and create cities that work for everyone.
A 2009 resolution of the Warsaw City Council contains guidelines on street nomenclature: “the use of names derived from proper names, common names or commemorative names, keeping the necessary balance between them, with the proviso that, where possible, dominance of commemorative names should be avoided.” The exhibition and its accompanying book are an attempt to dispel the marginalization of women in public space.
In the autumn an art book “WAW” by Maryna Tomaszewska will also be published, available at the DSH Bookshop. Book design: Martyna Wędzicka-Obuchowicz (author of the exhibition visual identity).
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Premiere of the book: 18 October 2025 (as part of the Heroines Festival 2025).
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Exhibition venue: History Meeting House (DSH), ul. Karowa 20, Warsaw.
Project partner: Stadtkuratorin Hamburg (@stadtkuratorinhamburg).
Maryna Tomaszewska (@maryna) — an interdisciplinary artist: objects, installations, performances and art books. Editor-in-chief of Period yk Najgorszego. Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, she heads the Experimental Text Studio at the Faculty of Media Art. Participant in exhibitions including BWA Wrocław, BWA Zielona Góra, CSW Zamek Ujazdowski, MATCA Cluj-Napoca, OOF Gallery London, Golden Thread Gallery Belfast, NY Art Book Fair and LA Art Book Fair. Recipient of grants from the City of Warsaw, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the “Młoda Polska” program. Her art books are held in collections including MoMA, SFMOMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Joanna Warsza — curator (City Curator of Hamburg), editor, essayist. Curator and co-curator of many exhibitions and urban projects and conferences (including the Georgia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2013; Polish Pavilion in Venice 2022; Radical Playgrounds, Gropius Bau, Berlin 2024; Autostrada Biennale in Prizren 2021 and 2023; Public Art Munich 2018; 7th Berlin Biennale 2012). From 2014–2024 she was program director of CuratorLab at Konstfack University of the Arts in Stockholm. Editor of over 15 publications.
MARYNA TOMASZEWSKA — “WAW: WOMEN’S CITY, WOMEN’S STREETS”
Temporary exhibition and book launch.
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19.09.2025–22.02.2026
Maryna Tomaszewska’s installation at the History Meeting House (DSH) reverses the invisibility of women in public spaces through feminist statistics, gender-related textile maps, and biographies of invisible female matrons, highlighting asymmetries in the capital’s gender representation. The exhibition is presented as part of Warsaw Gallery Weekend (WGW+) and the art book will premiere on 18 October 2025 as part of the Heroines Festival. Publication co-financed by an art grant from the City of Warsaw.
Link: WGW+
