May 18 - December 31, 2024
The intervention is located on the facade of the building. It is available at all times.

Things, people, ghosts

A pen, a purse, a spoon, a pocket watch—in themselves, these objects may not present material or artistic value, and yet each one carries an individual history: someone held them in their hand, someone produced them under specific circumstances, someone gave them as a gift. Sometimes we know to whom they belonged, sometimes all we know is that their existence is intertwined with the history of Warsaw. Each of the thousands of objects in the Museum of Warsaw collections carries a fragment of the city’s history—countless microhistories, still passed on in people’s memories.

Jadwiga Sawicka’s artistic intervention is based on the three words which reflect the nature of the Museum of Warsaw’s core exhibition The Things of Warsaw. Art is not of utmost importance here—what counts are the stories hidden behind objects that were an integral part of the history of the city and its residents. Today, they help us understand the identity of Warsaw. 

Everyday lives of Warsaw residents once unfolded in the tenement buildings that now house the Museum of Warsaw. Microhistories took place in the rooms, salons, and kitchens, behind the façades of buildings rebuilt after 1945 thanks to the joint effort of many people. The Museum occupies eleven tenements, the entire north side of the Old Town Market Square known as the Dekert’s Side. Thanks to Jadwiga Sawicka’s intervention, the Museum buildings’ façades will be given a new life and new expression for the period of several months. The letters, characteristic of Sawicka’s work, will form words announcing what awaits visitors inside.

Jadwiga Sawicka is a recognized painter and installation artist who explores the emotions hidden in words, initiates new contexts, and extracts surprising meanings in her art. Her works are not merely large-format canvases with text but also numerous site-specific actions in urban spaces. By giving words materiality, the artist discreetly encourages us to reflect upon them.

artist: Jadwiga Sawicka

substantive collaboration: Karolina Ziębińska

conceptual and production cooperation: Wanda Kaczor, Julia Kern-Protassewicz