The Gleaners Society, a Prelude

Sebastian Cichocki, curator of the Guest Programme of the 40th EVA International, will be in conversation with James Bridle, writer, artist and technologist, to introduce this year’s programme.

Sebastian Cichocki is the Chief Curator and Head of Research at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN), where he was a member of curatorial teams of Who Will Write the History of Tears: Artists on Women’s Rights (2021), Primary Forms (2021-ongoing), The Penumbral Age: Art in the Times of Planetary Crisis (2020), Never Again: Art against War and Fascism in the 20th and 21st centuries (2019), Making Use: Life in Postartistic Times (2016) and other exhibition and research programmes.

James Bridle is a writer, artist and technologist. Their artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. Their writing has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, the Atlantic, the New Statesman, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. They are the author of ‘New Dark Age’ (2018) and ‘Ways of Being’ (2022), and they wrote and presented “New Ways of Seeing” for BBC Radio 4 in 2019. Their work can be found at http://jamesbridle.com.

Selected exhibitions by Cichocki include also The Postartistic Congress (Sokołowsko, The Konteksty Festival 2021, with Marianna Dobkowska), the Polish pavilions at the 52nd (Monika Sosnowska 1:1) and 54th Biennale of Art in Venice (Yael Bartana … and Europe will Be Stunned, with Galit Eilat), The Bródno Biennale (2018, convened with Paweł Althamer and Goshka Macuga), Rainbow in the Dark: On the Joy and Torment of Faith, Konstmuseum Malmö (2015, with Galit Eilat). Sebastian Cichocki is a curator at The Forum for Future of Culture at the Powszechny Theatre, Warsaw, a platform for feminist, ecological and antifascist activism and culture, and The Consortium for Postartistic Practices / The Office for Postartistic Services – networks of art workers contributing to the pro-democratic and anti-authoritarian political struggles. Sebastian Cichocki is also a member of The Sunflower – Solidarity Community Center in Warsaw, an aid, culture and counter-propaganda initiative for those who suffered from Russia’s invasion on Ukraine.