Kem School 2021: Opening

The first edition of Kem School, titled How to touch movement? Social choreographies, performance and queer feminisms as world-making, took off on the 23rd of August 2021.

Read more about the aims and concept of the programme here.

The final group of participants was shortlisted following an open call application process comprised of questionnaires and meetings which lasted from April to July. The first edition of Kem School was open to Polish-speaking artists, activists, choreographers and other cultural workers of all ages and levels of experience, with an emphasis on groups facing discrimination in Poland. Since the capacity of the School programme was limited to eleven participants, the focus of the final selection was to introduce a diversity of practices, backgrounds, and areas of experience.

As a result of this process, we were enormously excited to welcome an incredible group whose practice and research areas included but were not limited to: performance and visual art; dance; film-making; writing; activism; ecology; gender, disability and migration studies – along with their many intersections and niches.

The 2021 Kem School participants were:
Stefan_ia Gosiewski_a
Agata Grabowska
Wojciech Kozak
Nadia Markiewicz
Paulina Pawłowska
Magdalena Siemaszko
Kuba Stępień
Jul Walkowiak
Kamil Wesołowski
Bożna Wydrowska
Weronika Zalewska

The original members of Kem: Alex Baczyński-Jenkins, Ola Knychalska, and Krzysztof Bagiński, along with the Kem School mentor Ania Nowak and the School coordinators Julia Celejewska and Tosia Leniarska met the inaugural group of participants for the first time at the Foksal Gallery Foundation building which was generously made available to us for the first two weeks of the programme. Following an introductory session and a communal meal prepared by Słuszna Strawa, the group finally entered processes that would unfold gradually throughout the 6 weeks of the School programme.