We are pleased to invite you to the grand opening of the Temporary Headquarters of the Institute of Photographic Memory – a unique space on the city’s cultural map that will exist for exactly two hours as an artistic gesture examining the mechanisms of institutional memory.

The event, organized as part of the Super Pop-Up series by Superkurator Foundation during this year’s edition of Fotofestiwal Łódź, combines elements of exhibition, performance, and curatorial reflection on the ephemerality of contemporary cultural institutions. During the visit, guests will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the Institute’s program, participate in the artist’s book presentation, and shop at the institutional gift shop featuring limited publications and objects. The short-lived operation of the Institute is an integral part of the artistic concept, highlighting the paradox of institutional striving for permanence in the face of inevitable transience.

Post-Archival Amnesia Syndrome exhibition

The exhibition Post-Archival Amnesia Syndrome is a multidimensional reflection on the mechanisms of collective memory control, linking materials from the communist era with an analysis of contemporary digital information manipulation techniques. In the Institute’s space, visitors can see a series of visual elements documenting the spiral of archival research, listen to an immersive soundscape filling the room, and watch a film essay connecting historical surveillance practices with their contemporary manifestations. The exhibition creates a network of connections between seemingly distant phenomena – from communist visual propaganda to social media algorithms – revealing the continuity of narrative control practices. The central motif remains the question of who controls archives and how our individual memory becomes part of larger systems of institutional remembering and forgetting.

/ Artist: Jacek Laube

/ Organizer: Superkurator Foundation (Super Pop-Up series)

/ More information: https://www.instytutpamiecifotograficznej.pl/

Event Program:

• 7:00 PM – Official opening of the Temporary Headquarters of the Institute of Photographic Memory
• 7:15 PM – Opening of the exhibition Post-Archival Amnesia Syndrome with a brief discussion of the concept by the artist
• 8:00 PM – Book presentation and discussion about the project
• 9:00 PM – Closure of the Institute (end of operations)

>> Free admission. Due to limited space and the short operating time of the Institute, we encourage punctual arrival.