Familiar Strangers is an exhibition of contemporary art reflecting upon recent changes in Eastern Europe. Sadly, it is only since the violent invasion of Ukraine that the self-understanding of the European collective has expanded beyond the Western viewpoint. The exhibition presents political and social processes from the perspectives of multiple and critical identities in a region that was long considered to be culturally homogenous, even if this was never truly the case.
Familiar Strangers is an encounter of various voices: specifically of diasporas and minorities and their political struggles. It shows how fragile and complex those two-way negotiations are, between the transcultural and the local, the individual and the collective, the familiar and the uncanny in a post-communist society on its way to becoming a post-migrant one. Its title is inspired by Stuart Hall, the late Jamaican British theorist, for whom culture was not a way of being—but of becoming with and despite others, towards a more just society.
Each gallery is inhabited by the world of a different artist, as if it was a room of their own, and they all meet in an informal shared space in the middle. In Eastern Europe, during the communist dictatorship, the public sphere was often practiced in intimate settings, be it a kitchen or an apartment exhibition. Welcome to the worlds of some extraordinary "familiar strangers”, who forge a sense of place in the world, in Poland, in Europe and beyond.
Curated by Joanna Warsza, an international curator originating from Warsaw and living in Berlin, the exhibition is designed by Aleksandra Wasilkowska and features the works by Oliwia Bosomtwe, Assaf Gruber, Zuzanna Hertzberg, Renata Rara Kamińska, Jasmina Metwaly, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Natalia LL, Ngo Van Tuong, Open Group, Janek Simon, Shadow Architecture, Jana Shostak et Mikołaj Sobczak.
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