FROM TEXTILES TO SPACE: POLISH ARTISTS’ EXPERIMENTS WITH MATERIAL, ENVIRONMENT, AND PERCEPTION

October 9, 2026, at 4 p.m. M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art (V. Putvinskio St. 55, Kaunas) invites you to a programme of lectures and film screenings exploring experiments in Polish textile art in the 1970s – a period when textiles moved beyond the boundaries of traditional materials and became part of sculpture, space, architecture, and the environment.

This public programme accompanying Barbara Kasten’s exhibition Postabstraction returns to an important episode in the artist’s biography. In 1971–1972, while in Poland on a Fulbright programme, Barbara Kasten worked in Magdalena Abakanowicz’s studio – at a time when textile art in Poland became an important field for experimentation with material, sculpture, and space.

The programme will feature lectures by researchers of Polish art and textile history, presenting different aspects of this period.

Jędrzej Zakrzewski will give a lecture on Krystyna Wojtyna-Drouet, exploring the artist’s work and her experiments with textiles and materials, as well as the ways in which themes of everyday life, labour, and artistic independence intersect in her practice.

Karolina Łabowicz-Dymanus will present a lecture on Ewa Pachucka, focusing on her large-scale woven and crocheted works, in which textiles become sculptural and spatial structures. The lecture will explore how Pachucka’s practice brings together textiles, architecture, the environment, and the viewer’s experience.

Agnieszka Pindera, drawing on her text published in the catalogue accompanying Barbara Kasten’s exhibition, will discuss Zachęta’s role in presenting textile art, increasing its visibility, and shaping historical narratives. She will examine how institutional exhibitions and modes of presentation influenced the perception of textile art and its place in cultural memory.

The programme will also include two film screenings. Utkane / Woven, directed by Maria Oblicka and Alexander Cabeza-Triggo, presents the work, biography, and everyday working environment of Krystyna Wojtyna-Drouet. A film by Iwona Oleszczuk will also be screened. Both films will be shown with Lithuanian subtitles.

The lectures and film screenings offer an opportunity to take a closer look at the artists, institutions, and creative practices that transformed the understanding of textile art, as well as to gain a deeper insight into the context in which Barbara Kasten encountered new possibilities for working with material, space, and sculpture.

The event will take place in the Music Hall.

The project The Phenomenon of the Polish Textile School is co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland under the Inspiring Culture 2026–2027 programme.

The exhibition was prepared in collaboration with Zachęta – National Gallery of Art
Partners: Galerie Kadel Willborn, Philara Collection, The BlueKnowledge Art Collection
The exhibition was funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania
Supporter: The Polish Institute in Vilnius
Media partner: LRT, Reklamos Arka

The event is public and may be photographed and filmed. By attending the event, you agree to appear in photographs and video recordings and acknowledge that such photographs and recordings may be published publicly.