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Weaving Together What Is Still Becoming

artists: Agata PLK Polak, Andreea Anghel, Anna Steller, Elżbieta Jabłońska, Ewa Zarzycka, Ludomir Franczak, Magdalena Franczak, Marta Romankiv, Milena Bonilla, Pêdra Costa, Przemek Branas, Roberto Uribe Castro

BGSW / Ustka,
ul. Zaruskiego 1a

curatorial team: Agnieszka Kilian, Magdalena Ujma, Romuald Demidenko

30.03–31.05.2026
opening: 28 – 29.03.2026

Weaving Together What Is Still Becoming is a jubilee exhibition to be staged by the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art, an institution established fifty years ago. The show offers a non-chronological outline of the Gallery’s history and – rather than a collection – a story that relies on activities and relationships. We see the Gallery as a place and space in which diverse connections converge, processes occur and artistic proposals are negotiated with the public. We inspect the interdependences between the exhibition space and the nature of the exhibition itself: the fact that it is extended in time and has a beginning and an end.

The exhibition focuses on the relationships between people, objects, landscapes and stories. Their meaning is in a state of flux, continuously renewing itself between the memory of the institution and its present, between the history of the place and individual experience.

The BGSW is not just a space or place where human histories are recorded and artistic practices keep transforming. It is a living organism, too – a composite, near undefinable structure in perpetual motion. There is a direct relationship between the operation of the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art and the coastal and riverine landscapes of Ustka and Słupsk. Sands, marshes, port infrastructure, former grain warehouses and other spaces form a network of references. It is not against its background but within this network that our outdoor art workshops, meetings and other events take place. The landscape – never innocent, always entangled in a diversity of contexts – contributes to the defining of the institution on a constant basis.

One of the most prominent themes at the jubilee exhibition is the status of object and collection of contemporary art. The works on display contain elements of old pieces and remnants of artistic processes. Some of them explore the problem of archive and memory. Instead of permanent artefacts, the exhibition features traces, decompositions and ephemeral forms that call into question the stability of institutional narratives. We wish to find out whether the fragments of larger installations we have put on show might serve as a mirror image of the collection, its reverse or negative.

We also examine care as a strategy for institutional action and artistic practices. We introduce biographical narratives, performative activities and works that engage the public, accentuating the interlacing of private life with the functioning of the place. We show that the institution is a space of interdependences where care, hospitality and support matter. Care and tenderness in regard to small stories in many ways connected with the space which tend to be recorded or related from a perspective that is difficult to grasp, constitute the underbelly of our exhibition-tale. The show speaks of the non-existence of rigid divisions between the institution and life, of coarse linkages, repetitions and anticipations.

The time at the exhibition is not linear. The works weave together different temporal orders: historical, biographical, geological and speculative. The future emerges as a result of relationships already present within the structure of the institution – it has been with us from the very start.

The opening of the exhibition is a performative event at which sound and the experience of being together give rise to a temporary community. Recordings of these activities are going to be included in the exhibition, extending the supposedly fleeting occurrences in time.

Accompanying events

BGSW / Ustka,
Zaruskiego 1a

28.03 (Saturday)
16:00 Opening of the Weaving Together Of What Is Still Becoming exhibition
17:00 Performance — Ewa Zarzycka (Polish Sign Language)
19:00 Performance — Agata PLK Polak

29.03 (Sunday)
12:00 Guided tour through the exhibition — Roberto Castro Uribe
14:00 Performative guided tour — Przemek Branas

18.04 (Saturday)
12:00 Performance — Anna Steller
14:00 Guided tour through the exhibition — Ela Jabłońska

2.05 (Saturday)
12:00 Listening sessions — Ewa Zarzycka, Agata PLK Polak

9.05 (Saturday)
14:00 Workshop — Milena Bonilla*

30.05 (Saturday)
12:00 Artist talk — Paweł Korbus (Polish Sign Language)

*BGSW / Nawzajem, Partyzantów 31, Słupsk

Honorary Patrons:
Minister of Culture and National Heritage Marta Cienkowska
Marshal of the Pomeranian Voivodship Mieczysław Struk
Mayor of Słupsk Krystyna Danilecka-Wojewódzka
Mayor of Ustka Jacek Maniszewski

Media Patrons:
NN6T, Miej Miejsce, Restart, SZUM, Tygodnik Powszechny

Partners: The Sun Lubicz, OW Radość

Co-funded by the City of Słupsk