150 years ago, in a train station restaurant in the village of Jeżyce near Poznań, a bunch of regulars thought of a highly unusual way to mark its owner's 50th birthday: they gave him "living gifts". These were mainly farm animals: a pig, a ram, a goat, a hen, a duck, a goose and a rabbit, and a few more exotic species such as a peacock, a trained bear and a monkey. They all ended up living in the restaurant's garden. Such were the origins of the Poznań Zoo.
Museums and art galleries are again open to the public. As covid cases decline, restrictions are eased allowing some cultural institutions to return. Most museums reopened on Tuesday, 4 May, with a number of others planning to reopen within days.
Passed down through generations, the art of violin-making is a tradition that lives on and runs strong throughout the world. A reminder of that comes with the next edition of the Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Making Competition.
Even in the midst of a cold winter, there is a place you can visit for a taste of tropical jungle or hot desert. Couples date there, teachers hold biology classes, parents bewilder their children there with the sight of translucent fish and colourful parrots. The place, the Poznań Palm House, is celebrating its 110th anniversary this April!
At the end of last year, Polski Teatr Tańca (the Polish Dance Theatre) moved into its new location at ul. Taczaka 8. Pandemic permitting, the first audience members will be invited over in April. The inauguration of the new Poznań stage - a long-awaited home for a theatre that has gone homeless for nearly half a century - is scheduled to coincide with the International Dance Day on 29 April.
It has been over a year now since the pandemic first struck us. For a big chunk of that time, museums and galleries remained shut. They were also in lockdown at the time this text was written, with slim prospects of being reopened any time soon, certainly not without some form of restrictions. It is nevertheless worth your while to keep track of the exhibitions that remain accessible and at least click to support Poznań's local exhibition organisations.
Polish 19th-century painting is unique indeed. While the art produced during the country's occupation was thoroughly patriotic, it was also highly diverse, both in its form and in the themes taken up by the artists. As a consequence, works from the period invoke all sorts of reflection: on art, on the role of the artist and on the stances taken by individuals and society during challenging times.
As of 4 March, Plac Wolności is the site of a unique open-air exhibition prepared by the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity in cooperation with an international team of historians.
New Year's Eve in Chernobyl, a tour of the Zone, a game, a novel and a film either inspired by the events of April 26, 1986 or just set in the apocalyptic Exclusion Zone. The significant thread that weaves through and gives meaning to all of the above is Chernobyl and it has been wholeheartedly received by pop culture. In the process of embracing it, did we forget what it really was?
Marta Buczkowska and Mateusz Kiszka, authors of the book of photographs A Synthesis of Discovery. A Photographic Splicing of Poznań's Histories, interviewed by Karol Szymkowiak
