Maria Klassenberg

About The Artist(s)

MAGDA HUECKEL: A visual artist, set designer, scriptwriter, creator of documentaries, and theatre photographer. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Painting and Graphic Design of the Fine Arts Academy in Gdańsk. Her works have been presented at over 40 individual and over 60 group exhibitions in Poland and abroad (including Tate Britain in London, Circulation in Paris, Unseen Amsterdam, Vienna Art Fair). Her works can be found in the National Museum in Wrocław and in numerous private collections. Hueckel is the author of “Anima. Pictures from Africa 2005–2013” and “HUECKEL/THEATRE” (nominations for the 2014 and 2016 Photographic Publication of the Year Awards). She has documented a few hundred theatre performances. Hueckel was awarded scholarships by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and the City of Sopot and she’s a laureate of the Sopot Muse for Young Artists award. From 2002 until 2004 she was a part of the photographic duo known as hueckelserafin, together with Agta Serafin. She is the Chairwoman and co-founder of the CCHS Foundation of Poland “Lift the Curse”, which was awarded EURORDIS Black Pearl Award 2020. Hueckel is the curator and producer of the “Ondinata. Songs for Ondine” project.

TOMASZ ŚLIWIŃSKI: a director and scriptwriter. Graduate of the Directing Department at the Warsaw Film School and Feature Development Lab Programme at the Wajda School. His short movie “Our Curse” (2013) has won many prizes at film festivals all over the world and was nominated for the IDA Award granted by the International Documentary Association. He is a laureate of the “Young Poland” Scholarship Programme (2015) awarded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and a scholarship awarded by the City of Warsaw (2019). Śliwiński is a member of the Documentary Directors Guild of Poland and the Vice President of CCHS Foundation of Poland “Lift the Curse”. He is the co-curator and producer of a music project “Ondinata. Songs for Ondine”.

Magdalena Hueckel and Tomasz Śliwiński often collaborate on the production of films and artistic projects - Magda Hueckel writes the scripts and is the art director, and Tomasz Śliwiński is the director. Their documentary “Our Curse” was nominated for the Academy Award and won a few dozen awards at international festivals. Hueckel and Śliwiński created together a short film “Ondine” (2019) and short film series titled “Plague Chronicles” (2020). The series won the main prize at the DIG IT contest for the best theatrical activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their last production was “Stary” - the documentary about the National Stary Theatre in Cracow.

KATARZYNA KALWAT: A director, graduate of Psychology Faculty at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and the Directing Department at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, holder of scholarships granted by the French Government. Her works often originate from archive explorations and focus on researching the mechanisms of memory and postmemory. She directed a performance titled “Holzwege” (produced by TR Warszawa, 2016), which won the Grand Prix at the 22nd National Competition for Staging Contemporary Polish Plays, and “Reykjavik ’74” (The Wilam Horzyca Theatre in Toruń, 2017), which won the Second Prize at the 19th National Festival of Directing Art “Interpretations” in Katowice. The director is interested in processual forms, works that combine various fields of art, and researching the common ground between performance art and theatre. Katarzyna Kalwat has directed many theatre performances including, among others: “Landschaft. Anatomy Lesson” based on Waronika Murek’s text (The Julius Słowacki Theatre in Cracow, 2017), “Grotowski non fiction” created in cooperation with the visual artist Zbigniew Libera (Contemporary Theatre in Wroclaw and the Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole, 2019), an opera composed by Wojtek Blecharz, titled “Rechnitz. The Exterminating Angel” based on a drama by the Nobel Prize winner - Elfriede Jelinek (TR Warszawa, 2019), “Staff Only” project created in cooperation with foreign artists living in Poland (coproduced by Biennale Warszawa and TR Warszawa), “Return to Reims” inspired by Didier Eribon’s book and based on Beniamin Bukowski’s script (Nowy Teatr in Warsaw/Teatr Łaźnia Nowa in Cracow, 2020), and “Maria Klassenberg” (TR Warszawa in cooperation with Galeria Raster, 2020). Kalwat is a laureate of “O!Lśnienia 2021” Cultural Award granted by Onet and the City of Cracow. One of her latest performances is titled “Art of Living” and is inspired by Georges Perec’s “Life: A User’s Manual” (The Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre in Cracow, 2022).

ANETA GRZESZYKOWSKA: Born 1974, visual artist. She uses photography and video, focusing on their performative aspect. The leitmotif of her work is the analysis of the processes of self-creation, one of the key themes of art and a fundamental issue for the condition of today’s post-media society. Aneta Grzeszykowska examines the possibility of escaping from identity-shaping cultural and artistic stereotypes. She deconstructs her own image and manipulates it, eventually reaching for its sculptural substitutes. She thus comes closer to the conclusion that self-creation is merely another way of struggling against the mortal nature of the body. Aneta Grzeszykowska has participated in a number of important international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale (2022), the Berlin Biennale (2006) and La Triennale in Paris (2012). She has exhibited, among others, at the New Museum and Sculpture Center in New York, Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, the Folkwang Museum in Essen and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Her solo exhibition at Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw earned her the renowned Polityka’s Passport award (2014). Her works are held in prestigious museum collections, including: Center Pompidou in Paris, Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and Museum of Art in Łódź. She is affiliated with Galeria Raster in Warsaw and Lyles & King in New York. She runs the Performative Photography studio at the Academy of Art in Szczecin.