IdeoHarvest. Ideas and PrototypesExhibition concluding the Happiness Research Lab. Life After Comfortocene
Curators’LAB Gallery, ul. Nowowiejskiego 12
Opening: 15.05.2025, 6:00 PM
Exhibition dates: 16.05–1.06.2025
Coordination: Bogna Świątkowska
Part of Poznań Art Week 2025 “Territories” organized within the Municipal Galleries of UAP
Happiness Research Lab. Life After Comfortocene is a long-term artistic and research project initiated in 2022 by the Goethe-Institut in Warsaw, Bęc Zmiana Foundation, and Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK/U) in Berlin.
The project brought together cultural institutions from five Polish cities to explore new forms of comfort and seek solutions that could address the challenges posed by climate change, crises, and the resulting constraints on traditional habits and systems of operation. Its point of departure was the need to move away from comfort based on fossil fuel exploitation and high-emission technologies.
The initiative aimed to connect the fields of art, science, design, technology, and entrepreneurship in the search for new ideas. It also encouraged cultural institutions to forge interdisciplinary collaborations and operate beyond established disciplinary boundaries.
The foundation of the project was the belief that initiatives in the cultural field possess the capacity to anticipate the near future, and that culture, viewed as a space for research and development, is a vital resource for social imagination.
Topics explored in the project included plant migration, urban soil regeneration, the impact of public space design on mental well-being, potable water scarcity, the potential of urban wastelands, strategies to combat isolation and loneliness, and the search for optimism and spaces that nurture social bonds.
The resulting ideas took on tangible form as prototype solutions, each addressing a locally developed issue through partnerships between the participating institutions: Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, BWA Wrocław Galleries of Contemporary Art, Gdańsk City Culture Institute, Media Dizajn Association (Szczecin), and Arsenał Gallery in Białystok.
The exhibition shows how initially fleeting concepts can take material shape and, through transformation into prototypes, gain grounding in the real world.
Organizers: Goethe-Institut, Bęc Zmiana Foundation, Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (Berlin)
The project, carried out in 2024, is supported by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation.
Bogna Świątkowska – initiator, founder, and president of the Bęc Zmiana Foundation. She has led dozens of projects focused on public space, architecture, and design, including research into the potential of urban social space. She is also the initiator and editor-in-chief of the contemporary culture journal Notes na 6 tygodni. Former editor-in-chief of Poland’s first pop-culture monthly Machina (1998–2001), she is the author of numerous texts, interviews, and media programs devoted to contemporary popular culture. Świątkowska is a recipient of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage scholarship (2014), and has served on advisory boards for cultural and spatial policy in Warsaw and at the national level. She is a graduate of the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities and a mentor in the Mentors4Starters program.
Participating institutions of the Happiness Research Lab:
- Białystok: Arsenał Gallery (Ewa Chacianowska and Eliza Urwanowicz-Rojecka)
- Gdańsk: City Culture Institute (Natalia Cyrzan and Anna Mituś)
- Katowice: Academy of Fine Arts (Justyna Kucharczyk)
- Szczecin: Media Dizajn Association / Szczecin Culture Incubator (Maciej Kowalewski and Marek Ostrowski)
- Wrocław: BWA Wrocław Galleries of Contemporary Art (Katarzyna Roj)
Curator of the project: Bogna Świątkowska, Bęc Zmiana Foundation (Warsaw)
Curatorial collaboration: Miodrag Kuč and Matthias Einhoff, ZK/U (Berlin)
Exhibition design: Maciej Siuda Studio
Project co-financed by the City of Poznań | #poznanwspiera
