SpinOFF 2026 begins on June 3rd with more than 25 exhibitions
Believe it or not – Fotofestiwal isn’t the whole story. On the 3rd of June the third edition of SpinOFF Łódź kicks off! A programme that brings together, under one banner, institutional and independent creative initiatives happening across the city throughout June, alongside Fotofestiwal.
This year’s edition has grown far beyond our expectations, bringing 29 exhibitions and events to 27 venues across Łódź. These grassroots, local artistic initiatives map out an alternative blueprint of the city for June—stretching from institutional galleries and studios to café-clubs, former factories, and historic tenement houses. Born from an open call and powered by the strength of the local community, the SpinOFF program serves as an authentic snapshot of what is truly happening in the city right now.
The list of established names in this year’s programme is led by Chris Niedenthal, whose Unintended Portrait at the S35 Gallery will sum up several decades of his work as a photojournalist. Alongside him, Łódź Kaliska series Stefan and Mayonnaise at Vienna House by Wyndham Andel’s Lodz – Kielecki Mayonnaise in the role of Campbell’s soup, Stefan Żeromski “celebritised” in the aesthetics of a Warhol portrait. Izabela Łapińska will present American Beauty at the Re:Medium Gallery – faces from the streets of New York, along with the accompanying film Break in the Stream, in which the photographs are “brought to life” by artificial intelligence. Marek Szyryk at the Szklarnia Gallery will show his manifesto Credo, and Grzegorz Przyborek joins the Olimpus Gallery with the premiere series Hommage à… – a tribute to his teachers (Jaeschke, Zieliński, Desvergnes, Pierzgalski).
Other plenty of exhibitions will happen outside the traditional gallery circuit.
The 6. Dzielnica café-club on Piotrkowska Street will host Kamil Wanias’s Na Bobrku, a documentary capturing the final operating phase of a coal mine. Meanwhile, the former Łódź factory on Struga Street—Drukarnia Offset—will be taken over by Fashion Leak 2.0 by Kinga Stec and Marcjanna Sokołowska. Following last year’s success, this project at the intersection of fashion, contemporary art, and performance returns to a new space with the same incredible energy. For one night only, Klub DOM will transform into the staging ground for ALT.TRU TRANSMISSION 2, an audiovisual evening blending original projections with live acts on the cutting edge of ambient, drone, noise, and EBM. Additionally, during the festival’s opening weekend (June 6–7), the Działo Sztuki Foundation will host the Make it Fun Again workshops at Dziupla on Dowborczyków Street. More information is available on the festival website, and registration is required.
The city’s traditional galleries and institutions round out the map. At Loom 61, Sofya Maroz presents Too Loud for the Crickets, a film and sound installation exploring how the experience of war embeds itself into the very fabric of perception. AOKZ Gallery hosts Landscape as a Field of Tension, sparking a dialogue between Bartosz Kokosiński’s paintings and Jacek Poremba’s photography, both centered around the unstable landscapes of the modern world. Meanwhile, at Księży Młyn in Pracownia Portretu, Jens Franke juxtaposes black-and-white photographs of pandemic-era architecture with a collection of hand-molded clay dogs.
At Kobro Gallery, the inter-institutional art & science project EuroBorderWalks—curated by Ryszard W. Kluszczyński and featuring John Perivolaris, Michael McLoughlin, Tomasz Ferenc, and Marek Domański—brings together artists and researchers to trace the “biographies” of three EU borders: Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland, Croatia/Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Poland/Ukraine. Finally, the Działania Foundation will showcase the finale of the 14th edition of the Sputnik Photos Mentorship Programme, presenting 17 individual projects developed under the guidance of acclaimed mentors.
A separate thread of the program highlights emerging talent from Łódź’s art schools. The Academy of Fine Arts will present Ultima Thule—an exhibition of bachelor’s degree graduation projects in Photography and Multimedia—hosted in a historic tenement house at 147 Piotrkowska Street. Meanwhile, students from the Department of Photography at the Łódź Film School will showcase Soft Evidence at FUGA Mosaic. Additionally, the premiere of the student publication What Is the Cost of Peace? at the Ośrodek Propagandy Sztuki will be accompanied by the opening of the Fotofestiwal reading room, a permanent space dedicated to photography books.
Accompanying Events will also include curatorial tours, meetings with artists and workshops; as well as an immersive installation (0,0,0) at Ravekjavik Festival for the closing moment of SpinOFF.
For opening hours, the full schedule, and the alternative city map, visit: spinoff.fotofestiwal.com.
Most events feature free admission.
See you in June!
