Circulation of Water project – study visit

In early June (4–10 June 2025), a team from the Ethnography Department of the National Museum in Gdańsk visited cultural institutions in Iceland as part of the Circulation of Water – Study Visits project, carried out under the ‘Inspiring Culture 2025–2026’ programme, funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The Icelandic partners in the project are: The Norwegian House – Regional Museum of Snæfellsnes, the Library of Water, and Síldarminjasafn Íslands – the Herring Heritage Museum in Siglufjörður. The Polish partner is the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.

The project was held under the honorary patronage of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Reykjavík.

The study visits marked the first step in building a joint artistic and research platform between the participating institutions. As part of future activities, the National Museum in Gdańsk plans to invite young artists associated with the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk to create an audiovisual performance inspired by the natural landscapes, folk culture, intangible heritage and traditional crafts of Poland and Iceland. The project pays particular attention to these themes in the context of climate change and its impact on the local environment and cultural practices. The artistic activities will result in site-specific audiovisual installations, to be exhibited in Icelandic and Polish institutions.

The creative process will be developed under the curatorial supervision of the Ethnography Department’s team, in collaboration with Icelandic partners. The institutions will make their collections relating to traditional fishing and life shaped by water available to the artists, and will also support the process of gathering accounts and testimonies concerning fishing rituals – both past and present. The theme of water and environmental transformation caused by the climate crisis will serve as a symbolic and conceptual link between Poland and Iceland. Through collaborative creation, the project aims to deepen the dialogue between cultural heritage and contemporary challenges.

The Ethnography Department of the National Museum in Gdańsk has extensive experience in carrying out international projects that link cultural heritage with contemporary global issues. Between 2021 and 2023, it carried out the project ‘Refuge – Climate, Migration, Heritage’, co-funded by the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism 2014–2021 and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage under the ‘Culture’ Programme, Measure 2: ‘Improving access to culture and the arts’. Many of the activities within the above-mentioned project were co-created by students who – addressing the impact of climate change on cultural heritage, social change and migration processes – produced extraordinary works and events. Examples include:

• the student project ‘Shelter – learning by doing!’, developed in collaboration between the Faculty of Architecture at Gdańsk University of Technology and the Ethnography Department of the National Museum in Gdańsk;
• the multimedia photography exhibition ‘Dysonans’ by students from the f11 academic photography society at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk;
• the exhibition ‘Ostoje. Etno x Foto ASP GDA’ – collages created from archival materials from the Ethnography Department of the National Museum in Gdańsk by students from the Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk;
• ethnographic research in Władysławowo, carried out by students from the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

Further information is available at: https://schronienie.mng.gda.pl.

As part of its research, cultural and educational activities, the museum frequently invites contemporary artists to collaborate, whose insightful perspective and sensitivity shed new light on the themes explored:

• works created for the exhibition ‘Shelter: Well-being’ by Norwegian artists from Trøndelag Bildende Kunstnere (TBK) in Trondheim, as well as German and Polish artists (Eva Ballo & Inga Skålnes, Ludomir Franczak, Linn Halvorsrød, Agnieszka Kurkowska, Pål Lersveen, Florian Tuercke, Anita Wasik, Leiken Vik);
• a concert resulting from the collaboration between organist Karol Mossakowski and interdisciplinary artist Ludomir Franczak, taking the form of a musical and visual spectacle combining organ improvisations with accompanying images from a live multimedia projection;
• the performance ‘Choreography of Plants’, based on a concept by Ula Zerek, taking the form of an audio walk through Oliwa Park in Gdańsk, where participants, using headphones, followed a narrative leading them to form a connection with the surrounding elements of the park;
• Dana Chmielewska’s choreographic work ‘Score for an All-Encompassing Wave’, based on the choreography of the body, space and sound;
• the ‘Panta Rhei’ project by Florian Tuercke, a German audiovisual and sound artist and builder of original instruments, comprising a sound installation and a concert (a composition based on the courses of rivers – from their sources to their mouths in the Baltic Sea).

The aim of the ‘Circulation of Water – Study Visits’ project was to initiate long-term cooperation and cultural exchange between Iceland and Poland.

We hope that the project will continue to develop and that the works of young Polish artists from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk will soon be available to Icelandic audiences.