To conclude Mikołaj Sobczak’s solo exhibition Rozenstraat is hosting an intimate salon focused on queer lives in Poland, featuring Aleksandra Gajowy, Szymon Adamczak, Krzysztof Kościuczuk and Mikołaj Sobczak.

 

Aleksandra Gajowy (Assistant Professor in Modern and Contemporary Art at the School of Art History and Cultural Policy, University College Dublin, and Associate Director of the UCD Centre for Gender, Women) will present a talk called The “Flatmates:” Lesbians beyond permissibility in the postsocialist landscape thats she introduces as follows:

 

“The spectre of communism is never too far away in Central Eastern European landscapes. In urban areas, as in much of the suburbia, everyday goings on are often backgrounded by the omnipresent sight of the concrete blocks of flats. Through the figure of the blocks, this talk envisions lesbian eroticisms transgressing the porous boundaries of public and private in Poland, at a time when LGBT visibility became more pronounced in the postcommunist era of neoliberal democracy. It considers lesbian presence in the public sphere and the perils of visibility that accompany such a turn to neoliberal LGBT identity politics.”

 

Dramaturg, writer, theatre, performance maker, and artistic director of IPOP, a platform for queer performance pedagogy and need-based feedback, Szymon Adamczak will take the exhibition as a starting point in his talk to reflect on the origins, collections and archives of the Queer Museum in Warsaw (of which he is one of the founding board members), as well as the questions, challenges, and futures its team ponders at the moment.

 

“As long as there were people on this land, queer people were here, too.” This is one of the sentences one may hear when attending a guided tour of the first iteration of a permanent exhibition at the QueerMuzeum in Warsaw, which opened its doors in late 2024.

 

The museum presents a comprehensive take on Polish historiography, taking perspectives and contributions of queer and marginalized people to the forefront. It embraces its grassroots nature and scale as a strength, experimenting with innovative approaches to researching and presenting history that may be out of reach for larger, more established institutions.

 

Mikołaj Sobczak will shine a light on Colette Lumière, a pioneering figure in the New York art scene since the 1970s. Her iconic video Justine and the Boys: Notes on Baroque Living, A Historical Hysterical Tape or Too Much Is Not Enough (1979) is currently on view at Rozenstraat. The work examines gender dynamics, power relations, and the commodification of both art and artist, and is now regarded as a key feminist statement and a document of a specific moment in art history.

 

Krzysztof Kościuczuk, curator and writer with experience ranging from documenta 14 to Muzeum Susch, and currently one of the curators of Manifesta16, wrote a beautiful essay for Prophet Machine, which will be presented at the end of the salon.

 

Join us for this festive late afternoon of conversation, reflection, and exchange.

 

 

 

About the artist

Aleksandra Gajowy is Assistant Professor in Modern and Contemporary Art in the School of Art History and Cultural Policy at University College Dublin, and Associate Director of the UCD Centre for Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. Her research focuses on queerness and lesbianism in Polish visual cultures since the nineteenth century, Central and Eastern European lesbian studies.

 

She is currently editing a special issue of The Journal of Lesbian Studies on Central and Eastern European lesbian studies, and serves on the editorial board of The Journal of Lesbian Studies and the newly founded SQS: Slavic Queer Studies Journal. Her monograph on modern and contemporary lesbian art from Poland is forthcoming in September 2026 with Manchester University Press. Her writing appeared in journals such as Third Text, Oxford Art Journal, Art History, and Art Margins.

 

Szymon Adamczak, is a Polish dramaturg, writer, theatre and performance maker working across disciplines. Alumnus of DAS Theatre and THIRD artistic research in Amsterdam. He works as director of In Pursuit of Otherwise Possibilities, a platform for queer performance pedagogy and feedback. Szymon is a founding member and program coordinator at QueerMuzeum Warszawa and has a vital interest in HIV-related culture and activism.

 

Krzysztof Kościuczuk is a freelance author and currently one of the curators of Manifesta 16. He studied art history and English philology at the University of Warsaw and has worked for institutions such as the Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw Royal Castle, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, and the German Forum for Art History in Paris. Prior to moving to Switzerland in 2017, he was involved in the 14th edition of documenta in Kassel and Athens.From 2017 to 2022, he served as artistic director at Muzeum Susch, overseeing exhibitions as Heidi Buche rand Carolee Schneemann. Kościuczuk  is a contributing editor for Frieze and Mousse Magazine. Since 2023, he has been lecturing at HEAD – Genève.