27/05/2026
I recently visited the Borowik Foundation in Saska Kępa and spent time with Michał Borowik while viewing the final day of 'The Shape of Life'.
The exhibition brought together works by Edward Dwurnik, Katarzyna Kozyra, Hans Bellmer, Kateryna Lysovenko, Agata Słowak, Jakub Julian Ziółkowski and others, moving through questions of memory, identity, violence, imagination, and collective experience. Rather than presenting a fixed narrative, the exhibition allowed different histories and psychological states to sit beside one another in tension.
Speaking with Michał Borowik also prompted a broader reflection on the position of Polish contemporary art internationally. My own engagement with the Polish art scene began in 2015 through researching and representing Polish artists from London. Being born in the UK while also being Polish has allowed me to navigate both Western and Central and Eastern European cultural contexts simultaneously, giving me a dual understanding of both regions. This has enabled me to act not only as a representative of artists and practices from the region, but also as a kind of messenger between different cultural and institutional landscapes.
Over the past decade it has been striking to witness how much institutional support and international visibility has developed around a scene that has, in reality, existed for far longer.
Poland has produced decades of important artistic movements across theatre, graphic design, conceptual art, performance, and painting, often shaped in direct response to political rupture and social transformation, yet much of this history still remains insufficiently represented outside of Poland.
What the Borowik Foundation appears to understand clearly is that supporting contemporary artists also means protecting cultural continuity, creating conditions where younger generations of artists can develop within an awareness of the histories that precede them, rather than outside of them.
Sarah Kravitz
