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Familiar Strangers. The Eastern Europeans is an exhibition of contemporary art reflecting on recent changes in Eastern Europe from a Polish context. It highlights the richness and complexity of representing multiple, hybrid identities in a region that was long considered to be culturally homogenous, even if this was never truly the case.
The exhibition focuses on the lives of diasporas and minorities, the feminist resistance, the impact of forced displacement and migration, and the long-lasting consequences of serfdom in the region. It explores tensions between the self and the other; between the local and the transcultural; between Eastern and Western Europe; tensions that forge hybrid identities.?
Each gallery of the exhibition circuit is inhabited by the world of a different artist. Together they form a constellation of over 30 works, including paintings, sculptures, videos, films, installations, and textiles. These pieces tell the stories of “familiar strangers”: from the Roma minority to the Vietnamese diaspora, from the Byelorussian and Ukrainian artists and activists in Warsaw to the history of the Polish-Jewish co-existence.
Curated by Joanna Warsza, an international curator originating from Warsaw and living in Berlin, the exhibition features the works by Assaf Gruber, Zuzanna Hertzberg, Rara Kaminska, Nomaduma Rosa Masilela, Jasmina Metwaly, Malgorzata Mirga-Tas, Natalia LL, Ngo Van Tuong, Open Group, Janek Simon, Shadow Architecture, Jana Shostak and Mikolaj Sobczak.
From January to June 2025, Bozar will shine a spotlight on Poland with a rich and multidisciplinary programme, featuring music, cinema, literature, and this major group exhibition. This exhibition is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and Co-organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the international cultural program of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2025.