Podgrodzie Community Garden
Julia Ciunowicz, Marleen Boschen & Charles Pryor, StonyTellers, Paula Malinowska
Curator: Romuald Demidenko, Tomek Pawłowski-Jarmołajew & BGSW Team
BGSW / Podgrodzie, Słupsk
21 March – 7 June 2026
Opening in Spring 2026 is the Podgrodzie Community Garden run by the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art – a space for collective work, encounters and exploration of the relations between art, plants and locality.
Taking place in the Podgrodzie district in Słupsk, the programme accompanies Agnieszka Brzeżańska’s exhibition Past and Future Arrive Together, held at the BGSW / Tower.
Opened last year, the garden in Podgrodzie has become the place to be, a space where herbalism and gardening practices are approached as ways of building knowledge and relationships. The Podgrodzie Community Garden also offers the opportunity to observe contemporary artistic strategies and to reflect on past and future.
The BGSW / Podgrodzie hosts two installations and a programme of events with the participation of artists and researchers.
Julia Ciunowicz
Wandering Seed Dispersal, 2025
The artist has accepted the invitation from BGSW to present her installation investigating the relationship between sheep wool and seeds of wild meadow plants transported in fleece. The work departs from the observation of natural processes that tend to escape human attention – the quiet coexistence of species in which fibre becomes a vehicle, and fabric a record of the contact between a plant, an animal and a landscape. The wool used in the work comes from Pomeranian sheep, allowing the installation to embed local context in a tale of materiality, memory and the relationship with immediate environment. The work provides a backdrop as well as a departure point for gardening activities and, in case of bad weather, a meeting space.
Marleen Boschen & Charles Pryor
Womb of Things to Be and Tomb of Things That Were
video, 26 min.
The film looks at seeds as a technology of hope — vehicles of memory, survival and future in the face of rapid biodiversity loss. In their work, Marleen Boschen and Charles Pryor combine historical and scientific research with elements of speculative fiction. They explore the ways of storing and preserving seeds as forms of archiving suspended life. Seeds are often stored in coolers and gene banks. They become germs of what might come and a trace of what has been lost. The story examines how seeds are stored in the Millennium Seed Bank in the United Kingdom, the forest gene bank Leśny Bank Genów in Kostrzyca and an organisation for food sovereignty in Palestine, amongst others. Topics addressed by the film include interspecies dependencies and collective survival strategies that determine the future of more-than-human ecosystems.
Sat 21 March, 14:00
Back to the Garden
— Julia Ciunowicz and Prof. Zbigniew Sobisz
The launch of the spring season in Podgrodzie seems the right moment to talk about plants, herbariums and local botanic heritage. Participating in the meeting will be Julia Ciunowicz and Prof. Zbigniew Sobisz — the curator of Herbarium Slupensis, Central Pomerania’s largest botanical collection. They will be discussing synanthropes, invasive species as well as the collection and protection of local flora.
Thu 14 May, 17:00
About Fireweed, Flame, and Stalked Bonfire Cup
— game with the StonyTellers collective (English)
As part of their BGSW residency, the StonyTellers collective invites you to take part in a performative game and meeting revolving around fire, regeneration and community. The group which traces its origins to the UMPRUM circle in Prague relies in their artistic practice on mutual care, sharing and interspecies solidarity. Their activities combine the aesthetics of social media and choreographed social situations, exposing contemporary tensions and the need to act together in the face of the climate crisis.
The residency of the StonyTellers collective is supported by the Společnost Jindřicha Chalupeckého
Sat 6 June, 14:00
How Did Daphne Turn Into a Plant?
Projection and artist talk
— Paula Malinowska (English and Polish)
During her BGSW residency, the artist is going to show her projects that involve 3D photogrammetry and scanning plant ecosystems. Her pieces begin with photography and move on to explore the links between image, technology and the fragility of natural environment. Topics addressed at the meeting will include digital archiving of landscapes and the role of new media in recording and protecting what is endangered.
The Podgrodzie Community Garden is an open space – local people and all interested in co-creating activities, conversations and gardening are welcome.
Also worth visiting are Agnieszka Brzeżańska’s exhibition Past and Future Arrive Together at the Tower, open till 7 June 2026, and Podgrodzie where you can experience art in relation to plants, earth and local context.
