From the Front, All the Way to Venice: Ukrainian Art in Poland After 2022

roman-bordun-irpin-july-2022_-the-apartment-after-artillery-shelling_auto_1400x800.jpg, default, 'An apartment after artillery shelling in Irpin' by Roman Bordun, from his series 'Let’s leave it for better times', photo: courtesy of the artist / U

photography & visual arts

The Russian aggression on Ukraine not only unleashed a wave of refugees, but also a spike in interest in the country’s culture. As the war continues to rage just across the border, Polish society has gained a deeper insight into both the specific nature of Ukrainian identity and experience, and the lessons to be learnt from it. Since 2022, it has been the Polish art world that has paid a great deal of attention to Ukrainian art, consistently opening its private and public institutions to its representatives, to the benefit of local audiences.

In 2024, the Ukrainian Open Group Collective (Yuriy Biley, Anton Varga, Pavlo Kovach) represented Poland at the Venice Biennale. This event could easily be chalked up to cultural diplomacy – a manifestation of Polish authorities’ support of the Ukrainian cause on the international arena, modelled in a way on the Giardini in Venice. However, the collective’s presence in the Polonia Pavilion cannot be reduced to this aspect alone.

In Venice, the Open Group presented Repeat After Me, a moving video installation in which Ukrainian refugees, both those who were internally displaced and those who sought refuge abroad, stand before the camera and vocalise the sounds of war they remember. They mimic the thunder of explosions, the whistling of incoming missiles, the whirring of drones, and the rattling of machine guns. The piece became something of a war-themed karaoke session: the audience was invited to repeat the sounds conjured by the traumatised victims. The artists offered viewers a lesson in the ominous language of war – one without words that the people of Ukraine have been forced to learn.

The voices resounding from the Polonia Pavilion in Venice were not only an echo of the dramatic events unfolding in the artists’ homeland, but something of a trope of the Ukrainian presence in the Polish art scene.

A refugee from Pokrovsk

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View from the 'Repeat After Me II' exhibition at the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, 2024, photo: Jacopo Salvi / Zachęta – National Gallery of Art

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A dozen or so months after the opening of the Repeat After Me exhibition, the art world began to prepare for its next Biennale. Zhanna Kadyrova, the Ukrainian artist selected to represent her country in its national pavilion, began her journey to Venice in 2025. She took the piece intended for the exhibition with her: an enormous sculpture of a deer, made of concrete, almost monumental in scale, modelled on an origami figure.

In December 2025, the artist arrived in Białystok and exhibited a concrete stag at the local Arsenał Gallery as part of her solo exhibition Awulsja. A film entitled IDP (Internally Displaced Person) was screened alongside the sculpture. From Kadyrova’s perspective, the concrete stag was also such a ‘person’.

In 2019, a sculpture designed by the artist was erected in Pokrovsk, a city in Donbas, which at the time was still controlled by Ukraine. Mid-2024, the front made its way to the city. Authorities called for evacuations. Before the full-scale invasion, Pokrovsk had over 60,000 inhabitants; in the summer of 2025, only about one thousand remained. In the autumn, the Russians stormed the city and it was almost entirely destroyed.

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'The Origami Deer' by Zhanna Kadyrova, photo: Natalka Diachenko

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The stag in question left Pokrovsk along with most of its residents already in August 2024. IDP documents the artwork’s journey: from its last days in the city and its complicated dismantling, through its travels across Ukraine, crossing the border, and to making it to Białystok. After the exhibition at the Arsenał ended, the heavy, yet fragile sculpture set off yet again – stopping to meet with audiences in Munich and Vienna – to finally reach its destination in Venice.

The route taken by Kadyrova’s deer – a work of art in exile – mirrors the paths of many Ukrainian artists for whom Poland has become a refuge or a stopover on their journeys, but also an important place in which to practise and showcase their work.

Since 2022, for Ukrainian artists, the road to the world at large has, in most cases, led through Poland. With the skies over Ukraine under constant attack from Russian drones and missiles, they remain closed to most commercial air traffic. For many Ukrainian citizens, the first stage of any onward journey is therefore a flight to one of Poland’s airports. Poland also serves as the venue for international premieres of Ukrainian art projects, such as Open Group’s Repeat After Me. Before the work made its way to Venice, its first showing outside Ukraine was at the Labirynt Gallery in Lublin. Thanks to the global attention generated by its participation in the Biennale, the collective embarked on an international tour with the project. It has been shown at over twenty exhibitions in more than a dozen countries to date.

The evolution of the ‘Sunflower’

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A film screening and a communal baking of cheesecakes at the Cultural Solidarity Centre ‘Słonecznik’ (Sunflower), photo: Facebook

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The presence of Ukrainian art on the Polish art scene is a multifaceted phenomenon that has evolved over time. It’s estimated that immediately following the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine – from 24th February to the end of April 2022 – at least 2.5 million people sought refuge from Putin’s aggression in Poland. In the reception of refugees, spontaneous social self-organisation initially outpaced the state’s response. Tourist centres, sports facilities and schools were hastily converted into accommodation for those arriving, but the majority of refugees found temporary shelter in private Polish homes. Millions of people became involved in providing assistance however they could.

Cultural institutions also joined in: many put their programmes on hold, turning their headquarters into reception centres, meal distribution points, and sometimes even temporary accommodation. The Cultural Solidarity Centre ‘Słonecznik’ (Sunflower) was a prime example of this. Organised at the turn of February and March 2022, in one of Warsaw’s Museum of Modern Art’s spaces at the time, it was a kind of ‘an institution within an institution’, as described by its organisers, who included both museum staff and activists working with them.

‘Sunflower’ was located right next to Warsaw Central Station, where, especially in the first weeks of the war, trains filled with refugees from Ukraine arrived every day. The centre was initially meant to be a hub for emergency aid, but over time began to evolve. Representatives of the collective explained in an interview with Polish Vogue:

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We had no plan, no strategy, we just adjusted to what was needed at the time (...) Medicine drives for hospitals in Ukraine, preparing and delivering meals to Warsaw’s railway stations and shelters, legal aid, and sometimes simply an information point. It soon became clear that the refugees arriving in Warsaw needed culture just as much as they needed a place to stay, a meal, a job and support. It began with poetry evenings and film screenings, and later we launched larger-scale events: lectures, workshops, a film club, performances, meetings with artists, activists and researchers, as well as initiatives to directly support culture during the war.

The evolution of ‘Sunflower’s’ activities – from a venue for emergency food collections and the distribution of meals to people who had just stepped off the train, to the organisation of cultural events – reflects the changes that took place throughout 2022 in the nature of the Ukrainian presence within Polish arts institutions.

The reception centres and shelters set up in museums and galleries eventually ceased operations. More than half of the refugees who arrived in Poland in the first weeks of the war moved on – to Western European countries. Those who remained (an estimated one million people) achieved at least a minimum level of stability in their lives. The burden of supporting the refugees, which initially rested largely on the shoulders of the public, was increasingly taken over by the state.

Outside of polarising logic

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'Bombed' by Oleksii Sai, 2020, from the 'Ukraine: Under a Different Sky' exhibition, photo: courtesy of the artist / Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

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A new normal began to emerge from the turbulent period of the first half of 2022. An integral part of this was both the growth in the size of the Ukrainian diaspora in Poland and the war raging just across the border, which cast a sinister shadow over everyday life in Poland.

The mass engagement in aid for Ukraine was driven by empathy towards the war-torn country and its citizens. This wave of intense emotion swelled rapidly, but began to subside over time. Fatigue set in, fuelled by the stress associated with the proximity of the ongoing war and Russian threats and provocations, as well as the day-to-day problems inevitably linked to the arrival of such a large group of refugees.

Over time, Poles also remembered that, day to day, they were a quite politically divided society – as, indeed, are most developed societies in this age of populism. The emergence of anti-Ukrainian sentiment was therefore only a matter of time, and politicians would not be true to themselves if they did not try to stoke it and exploit the powerful negative energy contained in such prejudices. And so, attitudes towards refugees – and also towards any aid for Ukraine – began to divide Poles, reinforcing pre-existing divisions and the logic of polarisation that shapes public debate.

Fortunately, this phenomenon did not extend to the art scene. In cultural institutions, the first months following the start of the full-scale invasion were marked by interventionist projects: primarily the so-called ‘crisis residencies’ for Ukrainian artists. Such programmes were launched at, among others, the Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko and the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art.

The latter organised a major exhibition, Ukraine: Under a Different Sky, as early as the end of 2022, featuring over fifty artists from Ukraine. In the years that followed, interest in Ukrainian artists did not wane, finding expression in increasingly institutionally refined projects. Emotionally driven initiatives gave way to undertakings based on deeper reflection and well-considered curatorial concepts.

The hospitality of institutions & private galleries

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Saule Suleimenova, 'Sky above Almaty. Qandy Qańtar. Bloody January', Kyiv Biennial 2025 exhibition view, photo by Alicja Szulc / courtesy of MSN Warsaw

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Now, the presence of Ukrainian art in Poland is a constellation of extremely diverse events, organised by many different players in the art world. These include large-scale projects, such as the involvement of Polish public institutions in the wartime editions of the Kyiv Biennale in 2023 and 2025. The Near East, the Far West, the main exhibition of this international event, was held at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

The Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź (the Łódź Modern Art Museum) became another stop on the tour of the travelling exhibition In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine. This project was significant for several reasons. The material gathered in the exhibition formed a unique historical foundation for understanding contemporary art from Ukraine. At the same time, In the Eye of the Storm is an argument, set out across dozens of modernist masterpieces, that refutes the claims of Putin’s propaganda, according to which Ukraine is an artificial construct: a geopolitical accident that occurred during the shaping of the post-Cold War order, a country devoid of its own cultural traditions. And, last but not least, the treasures of Ukrainian modernism are safe in Polish museums, located hundreds of kilometres from the theatre of war.

The interest in Ukrainian art was, of course, not confined to public institutions. In 2023, the Krupa Art Foundation in Wrocław, a private institution with great ambitions, with two inaugural projects. The first was an exhibition of the collection belonging to its founders, Sylwia and Piotr Krupa. The other was a group exhibition of new art from Ukraine, How River Roars, organised in partnership with the Pinchuk Art Centre in Kyiv. This spectacular example represents a broader trend: Ukrainian artists have become clearly visible both in the artistic programmes of NGOs and in the portfolios of Polish commercial galleries.

Noticing Ukraine

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'The Photographer' by Ivan Padalka, 1927, photo: National Art Museum of Ukraine

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It’s impossible to count all of the projects devoted to Ukrainian art that took place in Poland over the last few years. Many Poles, seeing the determination with which their neighbours are defending their identity, have wanted to learn more about the notions and discourses behind it. This doesn’t mean, however, that it took the outbreak of a war for Polish institutions to ‘discover’ Ukraine. In the art world, dialogue with its art scene had been ongoing for years. After 2022, it not only gained momentum and scope, but also took on new significance.

In the early years following the fall of communism, Poles’ attention was drawn to the West, whose culture, political order, institutional models, lifestyle and – above all – prosperity set the benchmark for social aspirations. Poland was being transformed by the powerful forces of global processes set in motion following the victory of the Euro-Atlantic camp in the Cold War, whilst at the same time transforming itself, driven by collective ambitions and desires. Geographically, it remained in Eastern Europe, but in the national imagination it sought to move as close as possible towards the highly mythologised West.

When Poles looked towards Ukraine, their perception of its singularity was hampered by two powerful preconceptions through which they viewed their neighbours. The first was the legacy of the decades during which Poland bordered not a Ukrainian state, but the Soviet Union. The neighbouring country was therefore perceived as part of a generalised post-Soviet area – a universe from which Poles wished to emancipate themselves. The second perception was based on a projection of historical geography: in this light, Ukraine appeared as the former Polish ‘Eastern Borderlands’.

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Waldemar Tatarczuk, photo: Jakub Orzechowski / Agencja Wyborcza

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So when the borders opened following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Polish tourists flocked to Lviv, they weren’t looking for a modern Ukrainian city, but rather for traces of Polish history and culture. From this perspective, Ukraine was not a real place – it served more as a backdrop for experiencing nostalgia, often tinged with resentment.

The Orange Revolution at the turn of 2004 and 2005 marked the beginning of significant changes in the Polish perception of Ukraine. It was through the prism of the revolution that Poles came to make out Ukraine’s distinct identity more clearly, and set it apart from the post-Soviet landscape. If our neighbours were fighting so determinedly for this distinctiveness, what was its essence? This question resurfaced – with far greater force – during the events on the Maidan in 2013 and 2014.

Answers were sought political analysis, but also in art. As recently as 2013, on the eve of Euromaidan – the Maidan Uprising, the Centre for Contemporary Art opened the Ukrainian News group exhibition, curated by Marek Goździewski. Its atmosphere alone conveyed the tension of the impending political and social upheaval on the Dnieper.

In the years that followed, however, two other institutions played important, indeed pivotal, roles in maintaining links with the Ukrainian art scene: the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok and the Labirynt Gallery in Lublin. At Labirynt, under director Waldemar Tatarczuk, who has been in the position since 2010, the presentation of Ukrainian art has become one of the main pillars of its programme.

Larger than art

In a reality shaped by Russia’s attempt to destroy Ukrainian statehood, the Polish art world entered the fray with an existing network of contacts and a significant body of institutional knowledge about the art of its neighbours. Ukrainian artists who had settled in Poland long before the outbreak of the war and had been contributing to the local art scene for years, such as Yulia Krivich, Marta Romankiv, Taras Gembik and Yuriy Biley, also played an important role.

It’s worth noting that the Polish art scene after 1989 was not international in character and focused primarily on domestic artists. One could say that, in the face of globalisation, the Polish art world set its sights on export – it was geared more towards promoting Polish art and securing its place in the international hierarchy than towards incorporating artists from other countries into its own circuit. Against this backdrop, the presence of Ukrainian art is exceptional: Polish institutions have not devoted such consistent attention to any other national art scene. The escalation of Russian aggression has brought about not only a quantitative but also a qualitative change in this field. The stakes at play have, in fact, risen dramatically.

What does this mean? Maybe the most pertinent answers can be found in the projects carried out by the Labirynt Gallery in Lublin in recent years. At the end of 2023, This Is Just An Exhibition was presented at Labirynt within the framework of the Kyiv Biennale. When it opened, there was no artwork in the galleries yet, only architecture reminiscent of the outline of a city shrouded in twilight and projections of the sky displayed on the gallery walls. These images evoked associations with the airspace over Ukraine – a sky that, from the outset of the full-scale invasion, had become a source of danger, an area penetrated by Russian missiles and drones.

Over time, the exhibition filled with works sent by Ukrainian artists from the front line, as one of the project’s fundamental criteria was to address creative individuals directly involved in the hostilities.

This Is Just An Exhibition was open for nearly six months, during which there were three openings of the gradually expanding and evolving exhibition. The dynamics of the project reflected the realities of wartime: the shape of the exhibition was no longer determined by institutional schedules, but by the dynamics of the conflict, the unpredictability of events at the front, the conscription and enlistment of artists into the army, and their ability – or inability – to continue their artistic work whilst serving.

Soon, artists from Poland shared their works too. This shared presence carried significant weight. By early 2024, solidarity with Ukraine was no longer an idea driving a nationwide surge of support, but the subject of political disputes. Even the selection of Open Group as Poland’s representatives in Venice was not without controversy.

This is our war, too

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Opening of the 'Voices from Ukraine' exhibition, photo: Labirynt Gallery

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Projects such as This Is Just An Exhibition and Repeat After Me show the war as an experience which doesn’t only concern Ukrainians. It’s also our war – and not only because we’re right across the border and could be Russia’s next target. But also because of the fact that Putin’s imperialism is an enemy of the values, ideas and beliefs we share with the people of Ukraine.

What is war? The attempt to answer this question, the effort to come to terms with this extreme experience, has become the central focus of the presence of Ukrainian contemporary art in Poland. This theme was also explored in other projects organised by the Labirynt Gallery such as the Polish-Ukrainian initiative Different Places, which was shown in two installments in the spring and late autumn of 2025 at the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv, and the triptych Voices from Ukraine, curated by Daryna Skrynnyk-Myska and Waldemar Tatarczuk and presented at the Labirynt Gallery, BWA Wrocław and BWA in Zielona Góra.

Many of the artists who took part in the Voices from Ukraine project were members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Others brought with them their experiences as refugees, of losing their homes, their loved ones and friends. Some of the artists have since been killed. The voices of Ukrainian artists came together to form a multi-dimensional narrative of war as an event that shatters symbolic orders, influences individual fates and social realities, as well as language, nature, landscape, and the ways in which space is imagined and experienced – and, of course, art itself.

At the heart of the question posed by Ukrainian art regarding the possibility of incorporating the experience of war into artistic discourse lies a fundamental issue: is culture capable of withstanding the forces of destruction, negation and death? Artists from Ukraine are attempting to recount this experience not only to themselves, but also to societies which, like Poland’s, live in peace and enjoy security – or perhaps just the illusion of it. Modern warfare has neither clear physical nor symbolic or ethical boundaries. It’s more like a radioactive element, whose radiation affects political, economic and emotional realities far from the centre of events.

If there is any language at all that allows us to come close to understanding the reality of war, it is the language of art. Without such understanding, in turn, the lasting solidarity, empathy and sense of community necessary to stand up to aggression are impossible. In this sense, the stakes of the Ukrainian exhibitions presented in Poland in recent years are significantly higher than the purely artistic ones.

_{Originally written in Polish, translated by NR, 2026}

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