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Published on 13 March '25

Familiar Strangers

The Eastern Europeans from a Polish Perspective 14 Mar. → 29 June'25

Familiar Strangers. The Eastern Europeans from a Polish Perspective is an exhibition of contemporary art reflecting upon recent changes in Eastern Europe. It starts from the perspective of diasporas, minorities and those who make the public sphere richer, in a region long considered culturally homogeneous, even if it was never truly a case.

Each of the rooms of the exhibition is inhabited by a different artist, presenting paintings, sculptures, videos, films, installations, and textiles, gathering over 40 works by 13 artists, most of which are shown in Belgium for the first time. In a highly turbulent period for Europe, the exhibition explores how social and political struggles intertwine with personal stories. Familiar Strangers calls for the necessity of a Europe in which we see and hear each other for who we really are, with and despite our differences.

The diaspora and minorities take centre stage in this exhibition and show how fragile and complex interactions can be, between the transcultural and the local, the individual and the collective, the familiar and the uncanny. “Many of those works are presented in Belgium for the first time. They all go beyond any local specificity” explains Joanna Warsza, curator of the exhibition. “Familiar Strangers is an encounter of various voices: specifically of diasporas and minorities and their political struggles, from the Roma people, the Vietnamese socialist intellectuals-cum-early capitalists or the Belarusian and Ukrainian artists and activists in Warsaw.”

From the video-performance Consumer Art (1973) of pioneering Polish feminist artist Natalia LL, via Polish-Romani artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas’ patchworks, to Assaf Gruber’s Miraculous Accident recently presented at the Berlinale (Feb 2025), the exhibited artists forge a sense of place in the world: in Poland, in Europe and beyond.

Joanna Warsza adds: “While the world is going in a disturbing and violent direction, the ideas of the exhibition pull the other way, towards the image of a non-violent and plural European collective with its West, its East, its North and its South, in which we can live together as familiar strangers against the confiscation of democracy.”

Curated by Joanna Warsza, an international curator originating from Warsaw and currently a city curator of Hamburg, the exhibition is designed by Aleksandra Wasilkowska and features 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 and Mikołaj Sobczak.

This exhibition is co-organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Poland.

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