SOLIDARNOŚĆ I TROSKA (SOLIDARITY AND CARE)

A progressive project for culture and a search for new narrations are now needed more than ever before. We are facing Russia’s impossible to ignore, armed attack on Ukraine. We are experiencing irreversible social changes that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought us, as well as political and generational transformations caused by the next uprisings of citizens, acting against populist governments and defending democratic values. We understood that climate disaster is a real threat. In the face of these crises and sudden changes in social and political reality, the definition of culture and the tasks and duties of institutions that create it have to be redefined. These issues will be discussed during Forum Przyszłości Kultury (Forum for the Future of Culture). The slogan of this year’s edition will be “Solidarity and care” – these are the values we consider to be the foundation of a new way of thinking about culture and society.

The program of the Forum for the Future of Culture, organized by Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw since 2017, is an answer to the social situation in our country. It focuses on supporting and presenting new, sometimes utopian visions. We understand culture as a number of factors that organize the entirety of our lives. We spoke about it in the face of the pressure of populism, intervening in the political lives of current democracies. We supported progressive values when the fascization of social life was getting stronger, but with it, the resistance and self-organization of citizens also grew. We followed the trends in contemporary culture, trying to build agreement among the people of culture and social movements. We observed the movements of rebellion and we discussed the institutional changes in the Polish cultural sector.

We have to not only think about the innovative project for the culture but also about solving the problems we are facing. The culture we are thinking about is created in bigger and medium-sized cities, but also in tiny centers. In big institutions, houses of culture, but also online and in the streets during civic protests. An unbreakable part of this understanding of culture is topics connected with ecology, climate changes, migrations, and the rights of women and LGBT+ people.

To show this diversity and to think about redefining the social role of culture, the first part of the Forum will be held outside of Warsaw, in opposition to the previous editions. From the middle of April until the beginning of June, we will meet in 12 different places in Poland – we want to show the diversity of Polish culture and the topics that are relevant to it today. At the beginning of October, we will move to Warsaw and other European capitals to sketch the wide map of challenges we are facing today. We want to invite you not only to talk about building the culture around such values as solidarity and care. We want to invite you to work together.

The Forum for the Future of Culture 2022 is organized thanks to the support of the capital city of Warsaw.