Taking place each year in a different part of the city, NARRACJE Festival takes its audiences on a fascinating exploration of Gdańsk’s districts through artistic performances and audience participation. This year’s 16th edition, Beneath the Eyelids, swallowed us whole in the Aniołki district, as it once again uncovered local stories and invites both residents and visitors to discover new perspectives on the neighbourhood, with the programme focusing on the urban space where architectural gems are naturally mixed with the memory of trauma and complex human histories.
Over the years, NARRACJE has taken place in diverse locations, including the Lower Town, Main Town, Old Town, Gdańsk Shipyard, Long Gardens, Upper Wrzeszcz, New Port, Biskupia Hill, Brzeźno, Oliwa, and Niedźwiednik. Each edition is curated by prominent figures in the contemporary art scene, including Bettina Pelz, Steven Matijcio, Rob Garrett, Anna and Adam Witkowski, Anna Smolak, Stach Szabłowski, Anna Czaban, and Piotr Stasiowski, among others.
The 2025 edition, which took place November 21-22, was curated by Maja Murawska and Karolina Połom. An art historian, curator, producer, and researcher with degrees in art history and cultural management, Murawska has curated numerous exhibitions and authored texts on contemporary art. While Połom is a curator, producer, and writer with a background in social psychology and art history, as well as the co-founder and president of the ByWA Foundation.
Organised by the Instytut Kultury Miejskiej (IKM / Urban Culture Institute) in cooperation with the Gdańsk City Gallery, NARRACJE transforms late-autumn evenings in Gdańsk into immersive journeys through the city’s layered urban landscapes. Since its inception in 2009, the festival has invited artists from Poland and abroad to transform well-known urban spaces with works ranging from intimate performances to large-scale video projections. The on-site artworks created specifically for the festival aim to establish a dialogue with the sites in which they are presented.
A dreamy district
“Although Aniołki was formally designated as a district only in 1992, this area has a rich and long history whose weight we do not intend to erase during NARRACJE”, say Murawska and Połom. As such, Aniołki remains one of Gdańsk’s lesser-known districts, spread across hills with unique views of the city and the bay, with interesting 19th and 20th-century architecture, a park, and new developments. The essence of this year’s edition is perhaps best captured in Polish: the district’s name, Aniołki, translates as “Angels”. Combined with the theme Beneath the Eyelids and the area’s layered history (once home to numerous cemeteries, more than any other Gdańsk district in such a compact space), it all created a truly poetic narrative. A great journey to take part in.
Most of the district is relatively flat, although its edges include numerous slopes and stairways. The area is divided by the city’s main thoroughfare, Victory Avenue (al. Zwycięstwa). Many paths lead through narrow, uneven pavements, sometimes obstructed by parked cars or protruding tree roots. Mentioning its extraordinary historical density, it is a significant contrast between beauty, the present (modern buildings), and buried trauma.
This year’s festival works were located at various points across the district, both on the medical-facility side and in the park area. The route could easily be divided into smaller sections, allowing visitors to explore only selected parts.
“Combined with the theme Beneath the Eyelids and the area’s layered history (once home to numerous cemeteries, more than any other Gdańsk district in such a compact space), it all created a truly poetic narrative. A great journey to take part in.”
The shape of NARRACJE #16
The artworks and media included in NARRACJE #16 were installations, video works, and performances that responded to the curatorial framework. It was thus worth taking a look at the list of participating artists and the Festival Club (a space for emotional release and collective expression). During NARRACJE #16, the audience encountered art created by artists from Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Slovenia. “We invited artists whose practices draw on different approaches – those grounded in the body, touch, lived experience, co-sensing, as well as empathy and the aesthetics of trauma”, the curators explain.
The festival presented a diverse exploration of memory, trauma, care, and resilience across contemporary art practices. Nadya Sayapina’s We Were Humans. We Longed for Beauty (2025) honoured women’s strength and tenderness through braided hair, transforming a symbol of control into one of remembrance and solidarity, while her video We Washed Each Other’s Hair performed communal care. Filip Rybkowski’s stained glass Bird, Ball or Projectile? (2025) captured the fragility of trauma, with a cracked sky symbolising sudden, life-altering events and their emotional impact.
“From the very beginning, we concentrated on the local character and the district’s community. One of the works was created by the Nasza Przestrzeń Foundation, an organisation that promotes active citizenship and supports accessible participation in cultural life. One of its leaders is a local guide and a resident of Aniołki. Kamil Kak produced a monumental textile piece woven from personal stories, symbols, and memories of people connected to Aniołki, in collaboration with the Aniołkowo Neighbourhood Club”, state the curators. They add that they had also worked with the Aniołki District Council, “asking residents via their Facebook page to help select a location for one of the artworks. Mateusz Gzowski, a Gdańsk-based architect and a resident of the district, prepared an installation incorporating shipyard cranes”.
Zuza Golińska and Trin Alt’s site-specific Room Number (2025) transformed a hospital space into a meditation on isolation, vulnerability, and the emotional life of objects within institutional settings, while Marta Stysiak’s Fragile Fragments (2024–2025) gave voice to children’s right to safe, nurturing spaces, combining ASMR-inspired video and sound to create a therapeutic, contemplative environment. Alicja Biała’s Memory of the Lindens (2025) addressed environmental fragility, honouring the historic Linden Avenue with bronze casts that transform threatened natural monuments into enduring symbols of protection and ecological awareness.
Beyond the programme
The guiding motto of The Festivals Club was “Darkest Before Dawn”. The club was arranged inside a PKP warehouse hall by the Warsaw collective Densiflora, created by a trio of DJs, promoters, and event makers: Ganna Glass, Axis operandi, and Iny aka MaL. It offered a full spectrum of sounds, from experimental to strictly dance-oriented. As every year, NARRACJE invited the public to a series of free guided walks. The secrets of Aniołki were also revealed during tours in English and family-friendly walks designed with younger participants in mind, moderated by a local guide.
Once again, the festival was accompanied by an educational programme, this time organised along two paths: one for children and one for adults. The young audience was invited to creative and educational activities exploring the themes emerging throughout the festival. Adults, through workshops and meetings, had the opportunity to engage more deeply with the reflections central to the event. The programme included creative activities for children, visual storytelling workshops, a dendro-challenge (an outdoor game among the trees), and a creative voice workshop. Moreover, the organisers aimed to make the festival increasingly accessible, a priority especially relevant to this year’s edition, and an adapted route was prepared for people with mobility challenges.
“Each year, we aim to make the festival increasingly accessible and welcoming for all types of audiences. Together with our accessibility coordinator, Monika Masalon, we are developing new measures to improve visitor comfort. We have prepared guided walks adapted for people with limited mobility, older visitors, as well as versions in English and Polish Sign Language. The route is approximately 8 km long but can be divided into shorter sections. This year, we carefully described all challenging areas: uneven pavements, stairs, protruding roots, poorly lit segments, or places where ambulance sirens and microphones may be loud”, says Joanna Borowik, Promotion and Communication Department at the Instytut Kultury Miejskiej (IKM).
The 16th edition of the NARRACJE Festival, Beneath the Eyelids, invited audiences to explore Gdańsk’s Aniołki district through art that reveals the extraordinary within everyday spaces. Through such an immersive encounter, NARRACJE shows how art can transform one’s relationship with place and community.
“Perhaps NARRACJE will become an impulse for conversation and a shift in perspective, as well as a reminder that art can genuinely influence how we think, feel, and build our relationships with the world, particularly the one closest to us”.
— Joanna Borowik
“We hope that our visitors leave not only with reflection but also with a heightened sense of attentiveness towards history, towards others, and towards themselves. Aniołki is one of Gdańsk’s lesser-known districts”, Joanna Borowik adds. “Perhaps NARRACJE will become an impulse for conversation and a shift in perspective, as well as a reminder that art can genuinely influence how we think, feel, and build our relationships with the world, particularly the one closest to us”.
Presenting their works in Aniołki were: Alicja Biała, Monika Drożyńska, the duo Zuza Golińska and Trin Alt, Ksenia Gryckiewicz, Mateusz Gzowski, Agata Jarosławiec, Kamil Kak, Małgorzata Kalinowska, Martyna Kielesińska, Daniel Leżoń, Magda Mucha, Fundacja Nasza Przestrzeń, Grzegorz Pieniak, Filip Rybkowski, Ala Savashevich, Nadya Sayapina, Vitalii Shupliak, Marta Stysiak, Kacper Szalecki, and Wiktoria Walendzik.
