Artists: Ania Bąk, Zuzanna Bartoszek, Przemek Branas, Maja Demska, Antonina Gugała, Igor Kubik, Marianna Marszałkowska, Mikołaj Moskal, Wilhelm and Anka Sasnal, Franciszka and Stefan Themerson (Themerson)
Curator: Gabriela Warzycka-Tutak
Colaboration: Natalia Śliwińska
Exhibition Design: REBUS (Cezary Kępka)
Painting works: Anna Kołodziejczyk
Framing: POIESIS Justyna Pyrzyńska, GREY FRAME Aleksander Cechanowicz, banda printshop Michał Jaworski
Visual Identity: Karolina Pietrzyk
Venue: GCSW, Piwna 27/29 + Szeroka 37
Opening: 29 May, 6:00 pm | Szeroka 37
Exhibition dates: 29 May – 27 September 2026
Melting the Body
Where I stand, the legs resting against the tree rise into the air. The eyes, now looking from a different perspective, take in the new image. As the natural direction of gravity has been reversed, the lens of everyday life becomes another layer of vision. After a few seconds, the brain learns the new position. You begin to observe.
The gaze is drawn into the scene, focusing on the story and emotions, in a soft and malleable light. We have a different sense of participation.
One shouldn’t remain in this position for too long. But one may practise: teaching the body to dissolve into micro-gestures; teaching the gaze to penetrate the second, third and subsequent planes of the image.
Sensitivity matures through encounter.
Like in Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, where we read that a person is not born complete, but matures through experience, and the meaning of life is discovered gradually rather than all at once.
I’d like to view art and its interpretation in a similar way: as a process of expanding sensitivity, developing openness and enriching experience.
Not everything has to have meaning.
Understanding is born from experience and reflection. We can create images that record moments of time, invite conversation and quietly permeate our consciousness.
The third place[1] allows us to open up to this experience. Shedding patterns and abandoning rules of the game, we meet over coffee.
A coffee to remember, with a hint of tabasco, where different worlds meet in a single smoky aroma.
The fish in the aquarium, just beside the armchair, walk through the water along their pre-planned routes. At times, they decide on a spontaneous change of course.
Or the experience of space where conversations are dropped and where you “just do nothing all day long but eat splendid food and lie in the shade beneath such a magnificent, broad-limber chestnut tree […]”[2].
From Where You Stand is a story of a shift in perspective. The exhibition leads the viewer through everyday spaces and seemingly ordinary situations, pausing over gestures, light and moments that usually go unnoticed. This is a story about looking – attentive, tender and open to other people and their stories, in a modernist interior from the 1960s that used to witness encounters and lively conversations.
The presented works have emerged from the artists’ prosaic relationships with space. The exhibition unfolds across two locations of the Gdańsk Centre for Contemporary Art, where the history of the former modernist Marysieńka Café subtly intertwines with modern art.
This is a story of the memory of space: the story of the roots and individual perspectives of the artists.
Gabriela Warzycka-Tutak
Biographies of Artists
Ania Bąk – born in 1984. Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, currently living in Poznań. She has participated in numerous exhibitions in Poland and abroad, including at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Museum of Art in Łódź, Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, Christine König Galerie in Vienna, eastcontemporary in Milan, Galeria Skala in Poznań, Galeria Czynna and Pracownia Portretu in Łódź. Her recent solo exhibitions include Result of Influence (2026) and Belly-Talker (2022) at eastcontemporary in Milan, as well as Rzeczy, które przychodzą falami (Things That Come in Waves) at Galeria Skala in Poznań (2021). Since 2011, she has taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. Through her multidisciplinary practice, she explores the politics of matter, embodiment and perception, working with painting, sculpture and sound. Her works emerge from the accumulation of organic and industrial materials, such as glass granules, silicone, foil, fabric and glue, forming porous surfaces and architectural objects that defy clear classification. Her practice is rooted in a process-based tactile engagement with materials, in which layering, decomposition and reconfiguration function both as formal strategies and metaphors for uncertainty, transformation and sensory multiplicity.
Zuzanna Bartoszek – born in 1993 in Poznań. She is a writer and artist. Her recent exhibitions include the Contemporary Fine Arts Gallery in Berlin (2026) and James Fuentes Gallery in Los Angeles (2026). She is a recipient of the 2021 ING Polish Art Foundation Award for her solo exhibition Spacer z nożem (Walking with a Knife) at Galeria Stereo. In 2025, her third book, 36 Pokoi (36 Rooms) was published by Hela Press. Since 2026, she has been a resident at Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, where she currently lives and works.
Przemek Branas – born in 1987 in Jarosław. Graduate of the Intermedia Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Studies programme at Poznań University of the Arts. He won the first prize in the Grey House Szara Kamienica Foundation’s competition (2015) and the second prize in the 2017 Spojrzenia (Views) Deutsche Bank Award, co-organised by Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw. He was artist-in-residence at MeetFactory in Prague, Czech Republic (2016), Sesama in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2017), Terra Foundation for American Art in Giverny, France (2017), and Villa Romana in Florence, Italy. His solo exhibitions include I Is Somebody Else at Centrala Space, Birmingham (2019); I wanna be your colonizer at Gdańsk City Gallery, Gdańsk (2019); Góra/Kosmos/Głowa (Mountain/Cosmos/Head) at Galeria Labirynt, Lublin (2018); Praca-technika (Technical Classes) at Project Room, Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw (2016); and Czkawka(Hiccup) at MOCAK, Kraków (2014). He participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Sen tropikalnego słońca. Witkacy i Zakopane (The Dream of the Tropical Sun. Witkacy and Zakopane) at the Tatra Museum, Zakopane (2020); Waiting for the Next Arrival at the Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania (2019); the 7th Student Biennial of Small Sculptural Forms at the Centre of Polish Sculpture, Orońsko (2017); the performance Embodied Action, Enacted Bodies at CCCD Artspace Green Wave Art, Hong Kong (2016); Communis – Renegocjacje wspólnoty (Communis – Renegotiation of Community) at Galeria Labirynt, Lublin (2016); Wykrój. Miasto. Tarnów (City/Pattern) at BWA, Tarnów (2016); Walka o ogień (Quest for Fire) at Galeria Szara Kamienica, Kraków (2016); Ars Moriendi at BWA, Tarnów (2015); and Performances Polonaises at Le Lieu contemporary art centre in Quebec, Canada (2013). His works are held in private and public collections, including Galeria Labirynt in Lublin, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art and Arsenał Municipal Gallery in Poznań. He lives and works in Serra da Boa Viagem, Portugal.
Maja Demska – artist, poet, tourist, scammer. She comes from Sopot. She lives in a block of flats.
Antonina Gugała – artist and researcher based in Warsaw. Her work focuses on photography as an image and object, but also as a medium, record and source of social practices embedded in everyday life. Author of the project Fotograf Warszawski (Warsaw Photographer) presented at the Archaeology of Photography Foundation (2016), and of the concept for the exhibition Celina Osiecka. Usługi fotograficzne (Celina Osiecka. Photo Services) at the Praga Museum of Warsaw (2022). In 2025, her photobook Running to the Sun was published by Bored Wolves. The project was also presented in a solo exhibition at Galeria Alina Foundation in Warsaw (2025). She is a recipient of the scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2021) and the artistic scholarship of the Capital City of Warsaw (2016). Currently, she is writing her doctoral dissertation on the relationship between professional family photography and motherhood at the Doctoral School of Humanities, University of Warsaw.
Igor Kubik – born in 1992. Visual artist, illustrator and author of artist’s books. Graduate of the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. His works include paintings, drawings and publications situated at the intersection of contemporary art and visual narrative. As an artist, he focuses on perception, time and materiality understood both as physical experiences and domains of the imagination. He is interested in optical phenomena, rhythms of nature and relationships between the visible and the hidden. Winner of the Polish Graphic Design Awards and the KTR Advertising Creators Club competition award, he is also a multiple-time recipient of the scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.
Marianna Marszałkowska is a sculptor from Gdańsk. She graduated from the Sculpture Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. Her installations and video works explore notion of crisis with all its ambiguities. Drawing on the concept of new materialism, she emphasises the idea of reusing the already existing objects, applying them in new contexts and constructing her own metaphors. Her practice is woven around personal experience and herstory viewed from the moment of birth. In 2021, she took part in the project Studio Mistrzyni (Masterclass Studio) under Joanna Rajkowska at BWA Wrocław. In 2024, she participated in the Rybie Oko 11 Young Art Biennial in Słupsk. Her works were shown at the Młode Wilki Festival in Szczecin (2018), the 16th International Triennial of Tapestry in Łódź, and the Trzy plagi (Three Plagues) exhibition at Galeria Labirynt in Lublin. Her solo exhibitions includeKaruzela do usypiania (Merry-Go-Round to Fall Asleep) at Złoty Kiosk, Wrocław (2015), and Zbiórka (Gathering) at Żak in Gdańsk (2024). She is a recipient of the scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (Warsaw 2018), as well the Audience Award for her work Sztuczne (Artificial) at the 7th Gdańsk Art Biennial (Gdańsk, 2023).
Mikołaj Moskal is a visual artist. He works primarily in tempera on paper. Gathering information and inspiration are central to his artistic activities, allowing him to construct contemplative and harmonious worlds. He pays particular attention to the properties of his material, as well as to sensory and emotional experience. His synthetic figures and shapes are reflections of the real world; as emotional ideograms and abstract forms on the threshold of imagination, they are suspended in a historical void and transgressing cultures. His works have been presented at various solo and group exhibitions in Poland and abroad, and are held in private collections. He currently lives and works in Kraków.
Anka Sasnal – born in 1973 in Busko-Zdrój. Director, screenwriter, and editor. She studied Polish language and literature at the Pedagogical University of Kraków and gender studies at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków. She lives and works in Kraków.
Wilhelm Sasnal – born in 1972 in Tarnów. Painter, draughtsman, filmmaker and comic book artist. His works have been presented at numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (2024), POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw (2021), Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2019), Kistefos-Museet in Oslo (2018), Haus der Kunst in Munich (2012), Whitechapel Gallery in London (2011/2012), K21 in Düsseldorf (2009), Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (2007), Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (2006), Kunsthalle Zürich (2003), as well as at the 31st São Paulo Biennial (2014) and 55th Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2008). He is represented by Foksal Gallery Foundation in Warsaw, Sadie Coles HQ in London and Anton Kern Gallery in New York. In 2006, he received the Vincent van Gogh Award at the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht. Co-author, with Anka Sasnal, of several feature films. Their 2011 production Z daleka widok jest piękny (It Looks Pretty from a Distance) won the main prize in the New Polish Films category at the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław (2011), the Grand Prix at the Crossing Europe Film Festival in Linz (2012) and the Silver Apricot at the Yerevan International Film Festival (2012). The film was also selected for the Tiger Awards Competition at the Rotterdam International Film Festival (2012). The pair’s second film Aleksander (2013) received a special mention in the NEW:VISION competition section at the CPH:DOX Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (2013). The international premiere of Huba took place at the 63rd Berlinale International Film Festival (2013), while Słońce, to słońce mnie oślepiło (The Sun, the Sun Blinded Me) (2016) received awards at the Seville European Film Festival (2016) and the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in Montreal (2016). Nie zgubiliśmy drogi(We Haven’t Lost Our Way) was first shown at the 72nd Berlinale in 2022. Their most recent film, Człowiek do wszystkiego (The Assistant, 2025), premiered at the 54th International Film Festival in Rotterdam.
Stefan and Franciszka Themerson met in Warsaw in the late 1920s. Franciszka graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, while Stefan studied physics and architecture. Their marriage 1931 marked the beginning of a series of extraordinary collaborations that would continue throughout their lives (except for the years 1940–1942). Working across various disciplines, they combined literature, visual art, film, theatre and publishing to create an original, avant-garde body of work of international significance. Around 1930, the Themersons began experimenting with photography and film, pioneering the Polish avant-garde film movement. Their early works brought together innovative uses of photograms, photography and photocollage techniques. Their films had an important contribution to the development of the European experimental cinema. Stefan and Franciszka Themerson lived and worked in London, where they both died in 1988.
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