From the sensual installations of Bogna Burska, the feminist-technological critique of Dorota Walentynowicz and Patricia J. Reis, to Hanna Shumska’s moving war narratives and the international project ‘Through the Keyhole’ in the Netherlands, the Gdańsk-based cultural institution CCA Łaźnia offers four exhibitions, each tackling a different contemporary theme: relationships, technology, privacy, the experience of war.
As Marta Kołacz, director of the Łaźnia CCA, emphasises, the institution builds its activities on four complementary vectors: internationality, localism, support for young artists and mobility. The individual areas permeate and reinforce each other, creating a wide field of activity – from exhibitions rooted in Gdańsk to projects developed in a network of European institutions.
Our four exhibitions – in two cities and three locations – explore areas where social norms are constituted today: communication practices, ways of representing the female body, visual relations of war and new definitions of privacy in a culture of total visibility ,’ Marta Kołacz concludes.
Bogna Burska – ‘Breathe’
CCA ŁAŹNIA 2 | Nowy Port, 5 Strajku Dokerów Street
26.09.2025 – 01.03.2026
Curator: Jolanta Woszczenko
The Bathhouse Branch in Nowy Port becomes a space where body, water and communication come together in a story about relationships and the environment. The exhibition by Bogna Burska, an acclaimed artist who will represent Poland at the Venice Art Biennale next year, is a multithreaded meditation on language, corporeality and ecology. ‘Breathe’ explores the fluidity of the boundaries between man and nature. Multimedia installations, films and paintings look at water as a metaphor for life and change, and as a space of encounter between hearing and Deaf people. In the works presented in the exhibition, Burska shows that art can create a shared space – even when we do not share the same languages or forms of communication. It is a story about how we communicate and how we perceive each other – especially when we differ in body, way of speaking or functioning. Contributing to the project are Daniel Kotowski, an artist and performer, and a team of scientists from the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Dorota Walentynowicz & Patricia J. Reis – “Sensory mechanisms”
CCA ŁAŹNIA 1 | Dolne Miasto, 1 Jaskółcza St.
14.11.2025 – 15.02.2026
Curator: Jolanta Woszczenko | Coordination: Oriana Radziuk
The exhibition dismantles images of women present in theatre, television and digital media. However, it is not an exhibition about performance, but about its dismantling – about revealing its structure and hidden mechanisms. In this way, Dorota Walentynowicz and Patricia J. Reis allow the history of media and technology to be re-read from a feminist perspective of visuality. Situated at the intersection of art, science and feminism, their work reveals both the politics and pleasure of technology, proposing a sensory experience in which touch and affect become a conscious counterweight to the dominance of sight. “Sensory mechanisms” are accompanied by “Too soft to see”, a space where sight gives way to touch, movement and sensual exploration. In this way, LAZNIA opens up to audiences of all ages and sensibilities.
Hanna Shumska – “Between the (un)imaginable and the real”
CCA ŁAŹNIA 1 | Dolne Miasto, 1 Jaskółcza St
05.12.2025 – 15.02.2026
Curators: Oriana Radziuk, Katarzyna Serkowska
The exhibition is the result of several years of research into the representation of the experience of war in Ukraine and other contemporary conflicts, present in the collective consciousness mainly through media narratives. It also forms part of the artist’s doctoral thesis completed at theAcademy of Fine Artsin Gdansk.Consciously operating on the borderline between document and fiction,Shumskajuxtaposes media images with personal micro-histories, and post-internet aesthetics with the tradition of art history. Constructed in this way, the intermedia narrative does not provide simple answers, but triggers a process of conscious looking at contemporary history.
“Through the Keyhole”
Het Archief / Art Space, Rotterdam
6December 2025 – 4 January 2026
Curators: Megan Hoetger, Jolanta Woszczenko, Weronika Zielińska
The exhibition explores the theme of privacy and intimacy in the age of surveillance and digital viewing. The presented works by fifteen artists, created over the past 25 years, form a mosaic of experiences. The show in Rotterdam is an extended continuation of the curatorial presentation made by Jolanta Woszczenko at ŁAŹNIA. The title ‘Through the Keyhole’ was used by Prof Witoslaw Czerwonka and Prof Wojciech Zamiara and their students in the intermedia studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk. The exhibition at the CCA features realisations by artists associated with this studio. Selected works from that show will be combined in Het Archief / Art Space with works rooted in migrant diasporas emerging between the Netherlands, Poland and other parts of Europe.
Four exhibitions – one organism
The programme at both locations of ŁAŹNIA (in the Lower Town and in Nowy Port) and the exhibition in the Netherlands form a coherent framework in which local experiences connect to the global circulation of art, and between creative practice and community life.
As Marta Kołacz points out: – ‘In a situation in which the scale of visual production is outpacing our capacity for interpretation, art institutions today need to shape a caring yet challenging space for reflection before the framework of the collective imagination is dominated by the logic of algorithms, political affects and accumulating crises. This programme is thus an attempt to create the conditions for careful thinking.
CCA ŁAŹNIA – Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdańsk
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source: CCA Łaźnia
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