Preparations are in full swing for the Polish Season in the United Kingdom. A year-long festival of Polish culture and the arts is to be launched on 1 May in Trafalgar Square.
Michał Kubicki reports
One could not think of a better venue for getting the Polish Season off the ground. It is going to be the broadest and most spectacular presentation of Polish culture in the British Isles. Aneta Prasał-Wisniewska of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw is the coordinator of the project.
‘As we’re working with different organizations and institutions in different field of art and culture, what you get at the end is a mosaic rather than a structured project. We are talking to the best British institutions, we are inviting them to Poland and we’re trying to show the best from Poland, a mosaic of beautiful projects, big and small, all of them important, of high quality and interesting.’
In the fine arts, over 30 projects are planned in such prestigious galleries as Tate Modern, the Barbican Centre, Whitechapel, Modern Art Oxford, Tate Liverpool and Tramway in Glasgow. There will be exhibitions featuring Polish painting of the turn of the 19th century, the works of the avant-garde artist and playwright Witkacy and the Polish born artist Feliks Topolski who spent most of his life in London. Polish drama companies will perform at the Royal Court Theatre in London and the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. A museum in Glasgow will stage an exhibition of Polish amberwork. Polish design will be one of the themes of the London Design Festival in the autumn of next year.
In 2010, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Chopin, two exhibitions devoted to the composer will be organized at the British Library and the National Scottish Library.
Talking about music, the contemporary music festival Sounds New will next year be devoted exclusively to Polish music. It begins on 2 May in Canterbury. Aneta Prasał-Wiśniewska again.
‘The highlight of the Festival will be St Luke Passion by Krzysztof Penderecki conducted by the Maestro, with the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Warsaw Boys’ Choir. The work will be performed on 2 May in Canterbury Cathedral, which is a great venue and I think it will be an exciting event.’
According to the Warsaw-based Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the main organizer of the Polish Season, it is very important that Polish art will be presented in a wide range of centres outside London, including Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Belfast and Norwich.
In recent years, similar Polish Cultural Seasons were organized in Spain, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, France, Russia and Germany. The Year of Polish Culture is currently held in Israel.