What we do?
We create performances, artistic events, festivals, and more to promote expression, creativity, and community engagement, participatory social and educational processes, and artistic interventions in Poland and abroad.
Our main interest is to explore different aspects of migration processes. We use various tools and new perspectives to work on public awareness about history and enhancing education about migration. We explore possible artistic narratives in which to talk about the phenomenon of migration and current events in the world, and we invite participants to educate each other interculturally through workshops and meetings. Since 2012, Strefa WolnoSłowa has been creating performances and other artistic and social projects whose direct creators are people of different cultural and religious backgrounds, from various social groups and of different ages. The Strefa’s theatrical events are created as the results of participatory and months-long work of workshop groups. All participants create the events by writing, improvising, and composing.
Our theatrical events thus involve each time around 50-60 artists and creators from different countries, both people of Polish origin and people from migrant and refugee groups. Our works have been shown in Warsaw as well as in Poznań, Gdańsk, Ostrołęka, Berlin, Bologna, Paris and other European cities. Since the beginning of its operation, Strefa WolnoSłowa has cooperated with numerous Polish and international organisations and institutions, carrying out projects aiming at involving migrants and refugees in active creative activities, multicultural education, discovering and telling refugee stories or deepening social awareness of the phenomenon of migration and refugees through artistic activities. Together with the Batory Foundation and Bread and Salt, we created the refugee.info portal, which has become the primary source of knowledge about refugees and refugee women in Poland. With the support of the European Commission, we realised international art projects ‘The City Ghettos of Today’, ‘Migrating Theater’, ‘The History Atlas Under Construction’ or ‘Beyond Theater’, in which we were originators and coordinators of activities. We have conducted theatre workshops with groups of professionals and amateurs in Iran, Uruguay, Palestine.
The Strefa’s theatrical events are created as the results of participatory and months-long work of workshop groups.
Our projects and cooperation
Our international projects are always firmly rooted in the local. In 2015, together with Teatr Powszechny, we initiated the creation of the Common Table, which, thanks to the support of the City of Warsaw as part of the project ‘Common Table - a place for creative meetings 2016-2018’ became a space for artistic workshops, cultural and social projects and numerous events aimed at the local community: debates, meetings, film screenings, discussions, workshops. The Common Table also acted as a Place of Local Activity, thanks to which it was open to various initiatives of local residents or to artistic and social projects of other organisations and informal groups. From 2019 to 2024, our collaboration with the Powszechny Theatre continues as part of the Social Dramaturgies creative initiatives project. Between 2018 and 2021 we ran the Open Institute programme - a space for young male and female artists from different disciplines and cultural backgrounds interested in creative work with migrant communities and nonprofessional arts professionals.
In 2021, we launched Migrart.waw.pl, Poland's first online platform showcasing migrant artists and their work. Migrart.waw.pl serves as a comprehensive database for migrant artists based in Poland. It also acts as a platform for migrant artists to connect, collaborate, and network.
Since 2021, as part of the Social Institution of Culture created in partnership with, among others, Krytyka Polityczna, we have been organising the School on Migration - a training and mentoring programme focused on supporting the initiation of actions aimed at and carried out together with migrant communities. In 2023, we initiated the project ‘Re-think The Challenge’, in which we are carrying out creative and research activities around the theme of equitable mobility in the face of climate change, together with the Italian theatre group Cantieri Meticci and the research group Reimagining Mobilities (University of Bologna).
Our team
Our team consists of a multicultural and multidisciplinary group of female creatives, cultural animators and activists.
Co-founder of the Strefa WolnoSłowa Foundation, director, cultural animator, specialises in creative work with multicultural groups. Graduate of the Faculty of Theatre Knowledge at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw and the Polish School of Reportage. She studied at the DAMS department at the University of Bologna, where she collaborated for many years with Teatro dell'Argine, completed a postgraduate course in the organisation of multicultural events organised by ATER Formazione and a master in Etnopsi (Ethno-Systemic-Narrative) in Rome. She directs the multicultural performances of the Free Word Zone and coordinates the foundation's local and international projects. She has led artistic activities with migrant groups in Italy, France, Iran, Bolivia, Palestine, among others. Scholarship holder of the City of Warsaw (2023) and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2024).
Co-founder of Strefa WolnoSłowa, member of the foundation's board of directors, promotion and communication specialist, leading creative workshops for children of different ages with close adults. Co-founder of the Stół Powszechny café (2015-2020) and the foundation's art and education programmes. Creator of the performance and sensory-sound installation for children LAS. Graduate of the Department of Theatre Knowledge at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw, student of Drama and Directing at the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático in Madrid. She worked in the press department of the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle and as a radio reporter for Chilli Zet and Radio Plus. Scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2024).
Producer of performances and assistant of multicultural workshops of the Strefa WolnoSłowa, coordinator of projects, including the Common Garden, Common Table a place for local activity, responsible for administration of the foundation's projects. Graduate of Cultural Studies at the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities. Student of Cultural Management at the Jagiellonian University and Art Promotion at the University of Łódź. In 2014, she was in charge of promotion and media contact at the International Festival of Street Theatres in Jelenia Góra. In 2015 she worked on the organisation of the Tricity edition of Touch the Theatre. At the foundation since October 2015.
Born in 1996 in Ukraine, resident in Poland since 2016. Copywriter, Content Creator, CMS Coordinator and even Backend Support in one, student of journalism and new media at Collegium Civitas in Warsaw. From 2013 to 2016, he studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine). He has been involved with Strefa WolnoSłowa foundation for three years. He has participated, among others, in such performances as Gods (2018), Turn on the Boiler. Let there be at least hot water waiting for me (2019), It starts with bees. Notes (2020), Space Odyssey 2021 (2020/2021, Zygmunt Hübner Powszechny Theatre), Water is very cold, but I can't stay on the shore (2021, as a participant in the drama group). On behalf of the Zone, he participated in the international artistic project The Lockdown/De Opsluiting (2019, Antwerp). He has published in several Polish-language paper and online media (including Dziennik Gazeta Prawna), and in the summer of 2020 he debuted his text in the pages of Krytyka Polityczna as part of the ‘micro-talks’ project carried out by Jasna 10: Warszawska Świetlica Krytyki Politycznej.
Performer, dancer, choreographer, counterculture animator, researcher, playwright. Graduate of the III Academy for Theatre Practices ‘Gardzienice’, the two-year course ‘Experimental Choreography’ of the Centre in Movement and the IC School For A New Dance Development at the Amsterdam University of the Arts. His field of interest is the politicity of the body, social choreography, the deconstruction of privilege, patriarchy and normativity. He explores new forms of presence in the context of environmental catastrophe, the crisis of capitalism and decolonisation. From 2008-18 performer and dancer with the Komuna Warszawa theatre company. In 2013-16 performer and assistant director in the performance ‘RequieMaszyna’ by Marta Górnicka and the Chorus of Women. Since 2016 he has been involved as a performer and choreographer with the socio-artistic activities of the Strefa WolnoSłowa foundation, where he works with the young and adult migrant community of Warsaw. Winner of the Europe Beyond Access programme ‘Dance and Disability. Crossing borders' (2020), Visegrad Artist Residency Program-Performing Arts (2021). Scholarship holder of the City of Warsaw (2022) and the Minister of Culture (2024) in the category ‘Dance’. Since 2019 he has been associated with the Theatre and Social Laboratory of the Association of Theatre Educators.
Kenyan living in Warsaw. An activist, community and youth leader, he has been involved in pro-social activities and working in NGOs from an early age. He was appointed by the Office of the Ministry of Decentralisation and Planning to work as a youth community project coordinator in Nairobi. Stanley is a development manager by training and also studies political science, social media and street photography. He has been working with Strefa WolnoSłowa foundation since January 2024 and co-coordinates the Youth Creative Practices Lab project, where he is responsible for leading team building, mentoring and group decision-making activities. He is the coordinator of the artists' database Migrart.waw.pl.
curator, cultural manager, her practice focuses on the reintegration of art into everyday life, overcoming elitism in art institutions, empowering those working with and for people outside the high art audience. She works with underrepresented artists, especially in situations of cultural exclusion, which can result from the ‘centre-periphery’ dichotomy or the limitations practised by cultural institutions.
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