12.11.2026

BETWEEN THE FOREST AND THE FACTORY

Meeting with Magdalena Worłowska

On Thursday, November 12, we invite you to a meeting with Magdalena Worłowska, centered on her book “Between the Forest and the Factory: Neo-Avant-Garde Beginnings of Ecologically Engaged Art, 1959–1981”, published by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN).

In this book, the author demonstrates that ecological reflection emerged in Polish art much earlier than is commonly assumed. She analyzes artistic activities and events spanning from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, situating them within the context of accelerated industrialization and mounting environmental degradation in the Polish People’s Republic (PRL).

Drawing on extensive archival research, Worłowska examines, among other initiatives, the open-air workshops in Osieki and Łazy, the Symposium of Visual Artists and Scientists in Puławy, and the Wrocław ’70 Visual Arts Symposium. She explores how artists responded to industrial expansion, landscape transformation, and a growing awareness of the ecological consequences of modernization. The book offers a fresh perspective on the Polish neo-avant-garde, framing it within the context of early reflections on the relationship between art, technology, and the environment. In doing so, it sheds light on a lesser-known—yet today, highly relevant—dimension of the experimental artistic practices of the 1960s and 1970s.

“For a long time, we have been aware that the flip side of socialist modernization was the degradation of the natural environment. Magdalena Worłowska demonstrates that artists not only critiqued this phenomenon in various ways but also put forward proposals to remedy the situation. They did so ‘between the forest and the factory’—as well as in lakes, mines, and fields—thereby expanding the traditional scope of neo-avant-garde practice. Worłowska’s pioneering synthesis fills—in shades of green—a significant gap in research on art in socialist Poland.” – Jakub Banasiak

The meeting will be moderated by Anna Markowska. It begins at 5:00 PM, and admission is free.

Magdalena Worłowska (b. 1986) is an art historian, Romance philologist, and exhibition curator, serving as an assistant professor at the Institute of Art and Design at the University of the National Education Commission (UKEN) in Kraków. She earned her PhD from the University of Wrocław, with a dissertation focusing on the neo-avant-garde origins of ecologically engaged art in Poland. She is the author of curatorial texts and scholarly articles on the intersection of art and ecology, and has participated in international conferences dedicated to the arts and the natural sciences.
Anna Markowska is an art historian and professor who teaches at the University of Wrocław. Her recent books include: “Art and Revolution: A Multi-Perspective Approach to Polish Art in the Immediate Post-War Period” (2023); “Games with Places: Wrocław Galleries—Katakumby, Zakład nad Fosą, and Ośrodek Działań Plastycznych” (2022); and “Why Didn’t Duchamp Part His Hair?” (2019). She resides in Wrocław and Kraków.