Polish Cultural Institute New York

Polish Cultural Institute New York Polish Culture for American Audiences: Visual Arts, Design, Film, Theater, Dance, Music.

The Polish Cultural Institute New York, established in 2000, is a diplomatic mission to the United States serving under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

09/29/2026

The countdown begins!

Starting this Friday, October 2, Film Forum presents ANDRZEJ WAJDA 100 — a three-week, 25-film celebration of one of the great masters of Polish and world cinema.

The retrospective features U.S. premieres of new 4K restorations of five essential Wajda films — ASHES AND DIAMONDS, KANAŁ, A GENERATION, MAN OF MARBLE, and MAN OF IRON — alongside rarities, special guests, and works spanning the extraordinary breadth of his career.

As Martin Scorsese put it:

“One of the greatest filmmakers we’ve ever had. His craftsmanship, his fearless commitment to the truth, his deep love for his homeland, his obsessive passion for cinema—you can feel it all in every frame and every cut of every picture he ever made.”

Come experience Wajda’s cinema on the big screen — from the Polish Film School classics that established his international reputation to the politically charged masterpieces that made cinema a living record of Poland’s turbulent history.

ANDRZEJ WAJDA 100
📅 Friday, October 2 – Thursday, October 22
📍 Film Forum, 209 West Houston St., west of 6th Ave.

The retrospective is co-presented by the Polish Cultural Institute New York and DI Factory, and co-financed by Polish Film Institute (Polski Instytut Sztuki Filmowej).

Partner: Documentary and Feature Film Studios (Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych) Presented with support from The Ashes and Diamonds Fund for Eastern European Film.

09/29/2026

🚲 When Polish teacher Edyta visited an orphanage in Mariupol, Ukraine, she saw children who, despite the harsh conditions, had not lost their joy. They dreamed of having bicycles, because the orphanage had only one.

That trip changed her life.

Back in her classroom in Poznań, she told her students what she had witnessed. Their response was immediate: they collected bicycles, skateboards, and scooters to send to Ukraine. What began as one class’s act of kindness grew into years of school fundraisers, charity fairs, and holiday stays in Poland for Ukrainian children.

📦 Then came the 24th of February 2022. While many were still trying to process the news, Edyta was already taking action. Together with friends, parents, and local schools, she organised shipments of humanitarian aid. More trips to Ukraine followed, bringing aid to medics, soldiers, and children from an evacuated orphanage.

Today, through her Czerwony Mak Foundation, Edyta continues her mission alongside Łukasz, who coordinates humanitarian assistance for people affected by the war. Together, they have built a trusted network of volunteers and partners that helps deliver aid where it is needed most. As Łukasz puts it, some of the greatest heroes of this war are those who never appear in the media – volunteers who devote their time and energy to helping others.

🎨 Whether it’s delivering Christmas gifts or leading art workshops, the Czerwony Mak Foundation creates moments when children can simply be children again, even as Russian drones fly overhead.

💬 As Edyta says, „You cannot send conversations or jokes in a parcel.” Sometimes, the most valuable aid is simply being there.

Trzy miesiące dzielą nas od międzynarodowej premiery artystycznego serialu inspirowanego „Teorią widzenia” oraz strony i...
09/28/2026

Trzy miesiące dzielą nas od międzynarodowej premiery artystycznego serialu inspirowanego „Teorią widzenia” oraz strony internetowej poświęconej książce. Projekt popularyzuje myśl Władysława Strzemińskiego poza granicami kraju oraz rozwija ją o namysł nad współczesnością.

Jeden z czterech odcinków stworzyła Agnieszka Polska, której prace przekraczają granice przeszłości i teraźniejszości, łącząc animację z poetycką narracją. Dwa filmy artystki są obecnie eksponowane na wystawach „Dary przyjaźni” w ms¹ i „Sposoby widzenia” w ms². Polska rozszerzy myśl Strzemińskiego o kontekst cybernetyki, ekonomii uwagi oraz obrazów generowanych przez sztuczną inteligencję.

Partnerami projektu są e-flux oraz Instytut Kultury Polskiej w Nowym Jorku.

Fot. Kadr z odcinka Agnieszki Polskiej pt. „The Birth of the Prediction Machine”.



Dofinansowano ze środków Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego w ramach programu Kultura inspirująca 2025-2026.
___

We are three months away from the international premiere of an art film series inspired by „Theory of Seeing” and the launch of a website dedicated to the book. The project promotes Władysław Strzemiński’s ideas beyond Poland’s borders and expands upon them by reflecting on the contemporary issues.

One of the episodes was created by Agnieszka Polska, whose works transcend the boundaries of the past and the present, combining animation with poetic narration. Two of the artist’s films are currently on view at the exhibitions “Gifts of Friendship” at ms¹ and “Ways of Seeing” at ms². Polska will reflect on Strzemiński’s ideas by introducing the contexts of cybernetics, the economy of attention, and images generated by artificial intelligence.
The project’s partners are e-flux and the Polish Cultural Institute in New York.

Il. Still from Agnieszka Polska’s episode „The Birth of the Prediction Machine”.

Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage as part of the Culture Inspiring 2025–2026 programme.

09/22/2026

When Polish teacher Edyta visited an orphanage in Mariupol, Ukraine, she saw children who, despite the harsh conditions, had not lost their joy. They dreamed of having bicycles, because the orphanage had only one. That trip changed her life.

Back in her classroom in Poznań, she told her students what she had witnessed. Their response was immediate: they collected bicycles, skateboards, and scooters to send to Ukraine. What began as one class's act of kindness grew into years of school fundraisers, charity fairs, and holiday stays in Poland for Ukrainian children.

📦 Then came the 24th of February 2022. While many were still trying to process the news, Edyta was already taking action. Together with friends, parents, and local schools, she organised shipments of humanitarian aid. More trips to Ukraine followed, bringing aid to medics, soldiers, and children from an evacuated orphanage.

Today, through her Czerwony Mak Foundation, Edyta continues her mission alongside Łukasz, who coordinates humanitarian assistance for people affected by the war. Together, they have built a trusted network of volunteers and partners that helps deliver aid where it is needed most. As Łukasz puts it, some of the greatest heroes of this war are those who never appear in the media – volunteers who devote their time and energy to helping others.

🎨 Whether it's delivering Christmas gifts or leading art workshops, the Czerwony Mak Foundation creates moments when children can simply be children again, even as Russian drones fly overhead.

💬 As Edyta says, "You cannot send conversations or jokes in a parcel." Sometimes, the most valuable aid is simply being there.

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the discovery of the Oyneg Shabes archive in 1946. In honor of this date, today is t...
09/19/2026

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the discovery of the Oyneg Shabes archive in 1946. In honor of this date, today is the public opening of our new exhibition, “Will These Words Reach You? The Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto.” In 1940, historian Emanuel Ringelblum organized several dozen activists into the covert Oyneg Shabes group to record and document Jewish life in the Warsaw ghetto. Refusing to accept that the only record of their fate would come from their persecutors, they collected and created nearly 35,000 pages of documents over the course of three years.

Immediately after the war, the few surviving members of the Oyneg Shabes group, including Rachel Auerbach, Hersh Wasser, and Bluma Wasser, began work to recover the Archive. Under Hersh Wasser’s direction, the first part of the Archive was found beneath the ruins of the Borochov School, on September 18, 1946 - you can see Polish Jewish historian Michał Borwicz, who also survived the Holocaust, handing an unearthed metal box full of documents to Hersh in this photograph. The second part of the archive was discovered by chance several years later, during construction work at the same address.

Learn more about this extraordinary archive by visiting the Museum - https://mjhnyc.org/.../will-these-words-reach-you.../

Credit: W. Forbert, Polish Press Agency (PAP) collection.

Join us Thursday, October 1 and Friday October 2 at 7:30 PMat NYU Skirball Center566 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NYA carpet ...
09/15/2026

Join us Thursday, October 1 and Friday October 2 at 7:30 PM
at NYU Skirball Center
566 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NY

A carpet of deep ultramarine blue, a small audience seated onstage within arm’s reach of the dancers, and Dionne Warwick’s “What the World Needs Now” playing on a loop that never quite resolves. For three hours, Ewa Dziarnowska and Leah Marojević draw together and pull apart, fall into step and out of it, testing and tending in turn. The dance is slow and unafraid of its own duration, building its charge by holding to one thing until it changes.

From one of Europe’s most striking younger choreographers, the piece offers something few dance works do: no stage, only proximity. Watching stops being a private act and becomes something reciprocal, something the two dancers can feel taking place. It turns desire, nearness, and the patience intimacy asks into something felt rather than observed.

Visit our website for more information: https://bit.ly/4ivqXdW

This project is made possible in part with support from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Instytut Adama Mickiewicza), Polish Cultural Institute New York, and Harkness Foundation for Dance.

This October, Film Forum presents ANDRZEJ WAJDA 100, a three-week retrospective marking the centenary of one of the most...
09/14/2026

This October, Film Forum presents ANDRZEJ WAJDA 100, a three-week retrospective marking the centenary of one of the most influential figures in Polish cinema.

A central voice of Poland’s postwar cultural landscape, Wajda transformed the language of film while engaging deeply with history, memory, identity, and the complexities of Polish society. The retrospective brings together newly restored works—including A Generation, Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds, Man of Marble, and Man of Iron—alongside rarities spanning his remarkable career.

The Polish Cultural Institute New York is pleased to co-present this major celebration of Wajda’s legacy with Film Forum and DI Factory, bringing his work and its enduring cultural significance to New York audiences.

📍 Film Forum, New York
📅 October 2–22
🎟️ Tickets and full schedule coming soon.

Co-presented by the Polish Cultural Institute New York and DI Factory, and co-financed by the Polish Film Institute (Polski Instytut Sztuki Filmowej).

Tickets and full schedule coming soon!

What makes Ryszard Kapuściński’s writing still resonate today?⁠⁠In the latest episode of Encounters with Polish and Ukra...
09/11/2026

What makes Ryszard Kapuściński’s writing still resonate today?⁠
⁠
In the latest episode of Encounters with Polish and Ukrainian Literature, host David A. Goldfarb david_a._goldfarb speaks with American longform journalist David Samuels about a writer, who shaped the postwar future of reportage in Poland and around the world. ⁠
⁠
Kapuściński traveled across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Soviet Union, and South America, transforming reportage through a distinctive combination of storytelling, irony, allegory, poetry, and close attention to the voices of ordinary people.⁠
⁠
Together, Goldfarb and Samuels explore what remains powerful in Kapuściński’s work: his fascination with political power, the stories of people living at its margins, and the strange ability of his writing to remain relevant long after the events he described have passed.⁠
⁠
⁠
Part of Encounters with Polish and Ukrainian Literature, a video series from the Polish Cultural Institute New York exploring Polish literature, writers, and the culture of reading. 🔗 Watch the episode and explore the series — https://bit.ly/3SZb58Y

What lies beneath the surface of New York City?Join us on 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟭𝟵 for an afternoon exploring New York’s urban water...
09/10/2026

What lies beneath the surface of New York City?

Join us on 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟭𝟵 for an afternoon exploring New York’s urban waters through architecture, art, ecology, and public space.

Public Program: Saturday, September 19 at 3:30-8:00 PM
Exhibition on view: September 18-20, 2026
Flux IV, 56-21 2nd St, Long Island City, NY 11101

We are especially pleased to welcome Polish architect and artist 𝗞𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗖𝘇𝗲̨𝗰𝘇𝗲𝗸 Karolina Czeczek of 𝗢𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗜𝗳 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲, presenting her 𝗣𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗣𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 project and joining our panel discussion.

The conversation will be moderated by 𝗣𝗮𝘂𝗹𝗮 𝗩𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗮 𝗱𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗲𝗹, Assistant Curator at the Department of Architecture and Design, MoMA.

A 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 examining 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝘀 𝗰𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗰 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 and a catalyst for 𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹-𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴. Participants include architect Karolina Częczek of Only If, (𝑷𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒄 𝑷𝒐𝒐𝒍𝒔), architects Marlisa Wise and Benedict Clouette of Interval Projects, in conversation moderated by Paula Vilaplana de Miguel.

𝑼𝒓𝒃𝒂𝒏 𝑾𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑨𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝑫𝒂𝒚 is a public program consisting of an urban waterfront walk, panel discussion, workshop, and film screening presented in conjunction with New York Climate Week.

More information in bio!

Presenters:
Finnish Cultural Institute in New York The Finnish Cultural Institute in New York | FCINY
Flux Factory Flux Factory
Polish Cultural Institute in New York Polish Cultural Institute NY

Program Partners:
Genspace Genspace
Newtown Creek Alliance Newtown Creek Alliance
Interval Projects Interval Projects
Only If Only If

Participants:
Hart Mankin hart mankin, Newtown Creek Alliance
Karolina Częczek Karolina Czeczek, Only If
, Interval Projects
Benedict Clouette Benedict Clouette, Interval Projects
Paula Vilaplana de Miguel Paula Vilaplana, MoMA
Sasha Huber Sasha Huber, Artist
Petri Saarikko Petri Saarikko, Artist
Adelle Lin Adelle Lin, Artist
Anna Morgowicz 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗰𝘇, Artist

Cultural Partners:
WantedDesign WantedDesign
Hunters Point Park Conservancy Hunters Point Park Conservancy

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