The first Sunday of Fotofestiwal will be the time of relaxation and shared celebration. Księży Młyn is a unique and well-preserved district, where you can feel the spirit of old, industrial Łódź. Former factories and workers’ housing complexes are still full of life. Together with the organisations, institutions and people working at Księży Młyn, we encourage you to join us and enjoy the relaxation, an urban picnic, meetings, exhibitions, workshops, a flea market with antiques, handicraft and art and design, as well as music and food trucks.

11:00-17:00 picnic, meetings, workshops, flea market of crafts and antiques, music, foodtrucks

EVENTS:

Outdoor photo-experimentarium
Visit the Przędzalnia Sztuki foundation for photo shoots against large-format backdrops in the form of fabric sheets with graphic themes related to Łódź. The backdrops designed by local artists will be set up in the post-factory Księży Młyn complex.

Academic Design Centre, “Portrait of the Community” exhibition
“Portrait of the Community” is a collection of portrait photos of people connected with the Księży Młyn housing complex. The purpose of the exhibition is to depict interpersonal relationships and microcommunities. The photos will be inserted into a large handmade folder. The symbolic nature of the photos will be emphasised by the objects that the photographed people hold in their hands, which have been individually selected and brought to the photo shoot. Authors: Agnieszka Furtak, Joanna Miklaszewska, Sławek Grzanek, Konrad Sosnowski.

11:00-16:00 Neighbours’ Photo Studio – get a picture of you and your neighbour!
During the Fotofestiwal, Paweł Ogrodzki is going to set up a Neighbours’ Photo Studio in Łódź. He is going to take portrait pictures of you and your neighbours that you will be welcome to take home. In this way, we want to celebrate, cherish and examine relationships. We are curious about how our neighbours affect our daily life. Rossmann is a Partner of this event.

12:00 Muzeum Lalki/Doll Museum – exhibition opening, Przędzalniana 51
A doll as an object intended to represent a human being has been known as long as the cave paintings. The oldest female figurine found in Poland is Venus from the Obłońska Cave, dated 15.000 years ago. During Sunday at Księży Młyn, a brand-new Doll Museum will be opened in Łódź. This new amazing place on the cultural map of the city will showcase a collection of dolls from different historical times. Many surprising stories await visitors.

13:00 “unfinished collection” – Overview of Art Academies, Academic Design Centre – guided tour, ul. Księży Młyn 13/15
This exhibition, prepared by the Strzemiński Academy of Art in Łódź, is a platform for exchange of the achievement and results of work of students and teachers from photography schools in Poland. It is also an opportunity for young artists to make a debut and at the same time gain valuable experience in their artistic and professional activity. The theme of Fotofestiwal 2022 is COMMUNITY, and therefore the contemporary communities connected with universities will take a special place in the event’s programme. The exhibition’s curators: Dominika Sadowska and Agnieszka Chojnacka.

14:00 Enter the patchwork, Dom Fotografii – workshop 
An open-format project developed by Agnieszka Furtak from Dom Fotografii (House of Photography) is based on spontaneously constructed interactive sculpture consisting of connected pieces of fabric. On the fabric, each participant of the performance is asked to outline the shape of their body or a gesture that represents entering a relationship with another person.

16:00 Księże Młyny– exhibition opening, Galeria Ikona
A gate, a road, a row of housing buildings on each side – at first glance, the layout of multi-family houses in the Księży Młyn is only slightly different than that of suburban complexes of detached houses. Do seemingly similar solutions favour creating a well-functioning community equally? Why are the suburban housing projects at the suburbs called “field housing”? Do the developers’ advertisement brochures offer an accurate depiction of luxury? Where do workers live these days?
The issue is examined by the Archipolo group in cooperation with Galeria Ikona.

17:00 School Number One, Pracownia Portretu – exhibition opening by Marta Hryniuk and Nick Thomas
“School Number One” is a multichannel audio-visual installation created from video images and recordings registered in western Ukraine in 2021. The installation is a part of a film project focused on auto-representation of current inhabitants of the Hutsulshchyna region and on how they reproduce and document the art of their region. 

17:30 “Projekt 365” exhibition, Visual Arts Gallery, Przędzalniana 49
The exhibition closes a joint photography project that Dominika Cybuch and Sławomir Grzanek have been carrying out since 2020. The intention of the project is to take one photograph every day and post it on social media, without imposing any themes or limitations, from macrophotography to architecture.

18:00, 18:30 Szumowar – audioperformance
On June 12, in the former bath in the building at 13/15 Księży Młyn Street, the present residence of the Academic Design Centre, the artist collective ‘Szumowar’ will present an acousmatic audioperformance ‘Minus One’. The event is included in the programme of this year’s Fotofestiwal.

The sound aspect of the performance refers to the sound texture of Łódź, made up of architectural structures and social and cultural codes derived from the traditions and history of the city as well as contemporary experience. The visual aspect will consist of imaginary motifs created by the audience themselves. The authors are not able to predict what these will be like – whether they will be just unconnected flashes of memory, or series of elaborate visual sequences.

‘What matters to our collective is the acousmatic side of the performance, the reception of sounds without the audience being aware of their source. We are searching for ways of experiencing sounds in accordance with the phenomenological approach. Following the concept of musique concrète created by Pierrre Schaeffer, we shall try to initiate sounds in such a way that they form a kind of a sonic sculpture built of sound objects. Akousmatikoi were the students of Pythagoras, who listened to their master while he was hidden behind a curtain. They did not see him for the whole five years of training. It was the voice that mattered.’

Performers:

• Aleksandra Chciuk,
• Klaudia Negai Dębiec,
• Natalia Kędzierska,
• Weronika Mendrek.

The event will accompany the ‘infinite set’ exhibition which will be held in the Academic Design Centre on June 9 – 26, 2022.

‘Szumowar’ – the artist collective of students of photography and multimedia was established in the Audiosphere Studio run by Aleksandra Chciuk at the Institute of Photography and Multimedia of the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts Łódź.

‘Minus One’ | audioperformance of the ‘Szumowar’ collective
Academic Design Centre
13/15 Księży Młyn Street
June 12, 2022 r., 6:00 pm and 6:30 pm

Note: The number of viewers is limited. To participate in the event send an online request to: szumowar@asp.lodz.pl providing your name, surname and the chosen time of the performance. Warning for individuals with claustrophobia: The performance takes place in complete darkness.