EXHIBITIONS
18 June – 21 December 2025Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat: 11AM - 7PM Thu: 11Am - 8PM, Sun: 11AM - 6PM
20 PLN normal / 15 PLN reduced, Thursday 1 PLN
The Summer that Changed It All: The Festival of 1955
The opening of the exhibition will be held on June 18 (Wednesday) at 6:00 pm.
The exhibition dedicated to a spectacular event in the history of the capital city.
The 5th World Festival of Youth and Students took place between 31 July and 14 August 1955, drawing nearly 170,000 young people from Poland and from all over the world to Warsaw. There was a propaganda goal behind the slogan “for Peace and Friendship”—to prove the superiority of socialism over capitalism. And yet, the Festival turned into a carnival of multiculturalism that anticipated political and social change and, above all, served as a formative experience for a generation.
The exhibition The Summer that Changed It All: The Festival of 1955 tells the story of the event itself while sketching the social and cultural backdrop of the 1950s. Themes include social advancement, building socialist Warsaw, the end of the Socialist Realism doctrine in art, the role of public space, the beginnings of decolonization and the “permeability” of the Iron Curtain.
The exposition will include archival materials and Festival memorabilia—posters, postcards, neckerchiefs, pins, programs—alongside photographs, Socialist-Realist sculpture and painting, and contemporary artworks.
“Two weeks of happiness unbound”
In the summer of 1955, young people from all over the world arrived in Warsaw. On 31 July, the 5th World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace and Friendship began—fifteen days of festivities, games, exhibitions and meetings. A city that had been closed and intimidated by the Stalinist regime, still partly in ruins and weary of shortages and queues, suddenly became vibrant and colourful.
The 1955 Festival was the most spectacular event of its time and became a generational milestone for many who were coming of age after the Second World War in the realities of the People’s Republic of Poland. About 26,000 visitors from 116 countries arrived in Warsaw, alongside 140,000 young Poles. The Palace of Culture and the 10th Anniversary Stadium had just been opened, and the city was decorated with large-scale murals. Hundreds of events were organised—concerts, exhibitions, meetings, lectures and parties. The ruins of the city that was still undergoing reconstruction served as the Festival’s backdrop. This two-week carnival of multiculturalism foreshadowed the political and social changes soon to come, both in Poland and around the world.
At the exhibition The Summer that Changed It All: The Festival of 1955, the landmark event serves as a point of departure for reflecting on the mid-1950s. Curators Zofia Rojek and Błażej Brzostek present the Festival’s preparations and course within social, political and cultural contexts. Key threads include the political “thaw,” the decolonization of Africa and Asia, the rebuilding of Warsaw and the capital’s public space.
On view will be archival materials and Festival memorabilia—posters, postcards, neckerchiefs, pins, programs—along with photographs, Socialist-Realist sculptures and paintings. Visitors will also be able to listen to the participants’ recollections. Artworks created specially for the exhibition by Yulia Krivich and Paulina Włostowska demonstrate that the 1955 Festival is not merely a historical episode from 70 years ago, but also an impulse for the present-day artistic practice. A public call for Festival souvenirs and memories was a vital part of the preparations for the exhibition.
Here comes youth
A decade after the war, Warsaw was still rising from the ruins. The population was young, the birth rate was high, access to education was easier and migration from the countryside to the city—and the resulting social mobility—was ever more common. Yet it was also a time of political terror and all-embracing propaganda. The Union of Polish Youth (ZMP) served as an instrument of state pressure at schools, universities and workplaces. In 1955 it was tasked, under the aegis of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, with co-organising a gathering of young people from all across the globe.
In less than a year the Festival committee developed an extensive programme, arranged accommodation and meals for the delegates, and ordered hundreds of thousands of printed materials and souvenirs. Across Poland, young people took part in so-called “Festival volunteer actions,” both to make it possible for foreign delegations to come to Warsaw and to earn a chance to travel to the capital themselves.
The Festival events are documented in numerous photographs (including rare colour images by Wojciech Jankowski), newsreels and press reports. Together with oral-history interviews, they form the exhibition’s largest gallery.
A harbinger of change?
Even the official accounts make it clear that the Youth and Students Festival quickly stepped beyond the rigid frames of its programme and turned into a celebration of youth, fun and cultural encounter. In Poland, a cultural and political “thaw” was slowly approaching, while the nations of Asia and Africa were gradually emerging as a significant political force, as confirmed at the Bandung Conference in April 1955. Delegations from countries carved out of crumbling colonial empires were present at the 1955 Festival. For the vast majority of Poles taking part, it was their first encounter with people of different races, cultures and languages.
The shift away from Socialist Realism in art could be seen at the Nationwide Exhibition of Young Visual Artists titled Against War–Against Fascism. Held at the Arsenal, it featured nearly 500 works in various media. Some pieces still adhered to Socialist-Realist doctrine, but many were more expressive or addressed themes of war and the Holocaust. The exhibition—referred to simply as the “Arsenal”—was organised under the Communist party supervision and pre-emptively criticised, yet it symbolically marked the end of Socialist Realism in Polish art.
COLOPHON
curators Błażej Brzostek, Zofia Rojek
assistant curator and executive producer Katarzyna Jolanta Górska
exhibition design Aneta Faner
graphic and type design Anna Światłowska
comics in exhibition space designed and created by Jacek Świdziński
artistic textiles designed and created by Paulina Włostowska
textiles created with the help of Tomasz Dróżdż / firma Texpol, PHU Sitex, Michał Szczęsny Szuwar
multimedia artwork Yulia Krivich
Museum of Warsaw exhibition typographic system Anna Światłowska
oral history interviews Błażej Brzostek, Łukasz Kamiński, Tomasz Krajewski, Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner, Zofia Rojek
poster design and promotional materials Joanna Bębenek
pre-press Maciej Chodziński, Katarzyna Łygońska
translated by Marcin Wawrzyńczak
editing and proofreading Justyna Chmielewska
framing and implementation Michał Bogumił, Zofia Cur, Anna Czejarek, Marta Galewska, Ksenia Góreczna, Paweł Grochowalski, Krzysztof Hernik, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, Piotr Lipiński, Monika Mazurek, Artur Miniewicz, Katarzyna Radecka, Tomasz Raubo, Adam Rogowski, Leszek Sokołowski, Mariusz Stawski, Joanna Turek, Filip Wielechowski-Olszak, Adam Wrzosek, Aleksandra Złotowska, Pracownia Tryktrak – Jakub Kamiński
conservation care Piotr Kaczkiełło, Julia Kłosińska, Katarzyna Lesiakowska-Tofil, Igor Nowak, Karolina Nowicka, Kalina Marzec, Piotr Popławski, Adam Wrzosek
digitization coordinated by Mikołaj Kalina
external loans Janusz Kurczak, Sonia Nieśpiałowska-Owczarek, Edward Nowak
internal loans Tomasz Lewandowski, Zuzanna Sieroszewska-Rolewicz, Aleksandra Lis, Małgorzata Oliwińska, Dorota Parszewska, Joanna Rykiel i Filip Żelewski
PR Anna Dobrowolska-Balcerzak, Anna Ładna, Aleksandra Migacz, Magdalena Nazimek, Martyna Sowińska, Nela Sobieszczańska, Karina Dąbska, Agata Fijałkowska, Agata Fronczyk, Dagmara Jędrzejewska, Daniel Karwowski, Jowita Purzycka
public programs Aleksandra Kresowska, Edyta Gołębiowska, Anna Lorek, Monika Michałek, Karolina Sawicka, Krystyna Stroynowska, Anna Zdanowska oraz Dorota Stolarska-Kultys
artworks from institutions and private collections:
Archiwum Akt Nowych, Archiwum Polskiego Radia, Biblioteka Narodowa, Bielańska Fototeka, Błażej Brzostek, Centrum Rzeźby Polskiej w Orońsku, Dom Spotkań z Historią, Jacek Drozda, Filmoteka Narodowa, Fundacja Archeologia Fotografii, Fundacja Sztuka Stosowana / Robert Szuba, Andrzej Jabłoński, Barbara Jaroszewska, Małgorzata Manteuffel-Cymborowska, Mazowiecka Biblioteka Cyfrowa, Muzeum Karykatury im. Eryka Lipińskiego w Warszawie, Muzeum Lubuskie im. Jana Dekerta w Gorzowie Wielkopolskim, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Muzeum Niepodległości w Warszawie, Muzeum Plakatu w Wilanowie, Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, Muzeum Zamoyskich w Kozłówce, Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej w Zielonej Górze, Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe, Anna Wielechowska-Olszak, Wojewódzka Biblioteka Publiczna Lublin, Katarzyna Zachara, Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Zofia Zalewska and from the collections of the Museum of Warsaw and the Library of the Museum of Warsaw
Accompanying publication Festiwal 1955. Święto młodości
Edited by: Błażej Brzostek, Zofia Rojek
Executive editors: Julia Odnous-Pawlińska, Marta Szotkowska
Our special thanksgo to Zygmunt Bobrowski, whose account of his experiences during the 1955 Festival inspired this exhibition.
