Endless Space

opening: May 30, 18:00

May 31 – June 30 (Tuesday to Sunday), 12:00 – 20:00

Special Schools Complex no.89, 8 Skaryszewska Street

free entry

A space designed by children and youths in a workshop process accompanied by researcher and curator Agata Kiedrowicz and her collaborators Aleksandra Rajska and Iga Fijałkowska. The results of the workshops – models built by children, plans drawn, needs expressed – were used by architect Maciej Siuda as the basis for an installation executed by Klaudia Filipiak in a disused part of a school building.

The initial premise of the creative team was to design a Children’s Civic Affairs Institution. A direct inspiration for our activities was the theory and practice of Janusz Korczak – a revolutionary educator who implemented mechanisms based on democratic procedures in the children’s homes he managed: justice was in the hands of a judiciary system to which teachers were subjected equally to the children.

The longer we worked at our workshops and the deeper we delved into the children’s imagination and experience, the more we felt the initial idea for the name seemed a misuse towards children – an appropriation of their social and political sensibility. Believing strongly in the performative power of the language, as a team working on the project, we decided that the “adult” language of power and hierarchy would not be used during the workshops. Eventually, the place took on a name invented by children: Endless Space, which provokes important questions. Is it possible to imagine a world where children’s opportunities are unrestricted by the place where they live, their social class, skin tone, or political status? Does the world created by adults instil a belief that children will live to reach maturity? To what extent do spaces in which we live undermine or reproduce mechanisms of power and oppression?

The designers of Endless Space are residents at the Centre for Foreigners in the Warsaw district of Targówek Fabryczny, a children’s home in Białołęka as well as students of the Special Schools Complex No 89. A particular living situation of young designers – disability or lack of a stable home, this intimate sphere that guarantees safety – is translated into a hybrid design of an ultimately public space (understood by adults as “children’s institution”). In their work, the public unexpectedly becomes the private, and “domestic”.

Endless Space is a democratic place for meeting, playing, resting and debating, as well as a performative archive and an exhibition of projects created by young and adult artists within an almost year-long programme RePrezentacje. New education. They are accompanied by pieces that constitute the context of the entire programme (e.g. Refugee Nation Flag by Yara Said, ICOON for Refugee by Gosia Warrink and an excerpt from the exhibition Gaudiopolis from OFF-Biennale Budapest).

We want to make sure that in this space, the voice and needs of children and youths resound the loudest. But it is in equal measure a place for adult audiences, whom we want to encourage to listen to this voice and treat it seriously.

Young creators: Ada Branecka, Agnieszka, Aleksandra Gruszecka, Amina, Bolo, Dagmara, Damian, Daryna, Doma, Dominika Wasilewska, Emilia, Gabrysia, Gosia, Greta Thunberg, Hava, Iza, Jasmina, Jovan, Julia, Justen, Kamcio, Kamil, Kamil Kućmierowski, Kasia Nowak, KS, Kuba, Magda, Magomed, Marek, Maria Surowiec, Mariam, Marika, Marta Fidura, Medni, Natalia, Natalia, Natalia S., Nastka, Olga Ciężkowska, Paweł, Piotr, Ramzan, Rayana, Renata Dziubiak, Rolando, Ruda, Sabina, Samira, Said Magomed, Sonia, Sulim, Sumaja, Svetlana Sukhorukova, Sylwia, Tanzila, Tymek, Weronika, Wiktoria, Władek, Zelam

(personal data of certain young artists were not disclosed at their own, or their guardian’s request)

Adult creators: Edgar Bąk Studio, Piotr Buratyński, Michał Buszewicz, Iwona Chmura-Rutkowska, Iga Fijałkowska, Alex Freiheit, Radek Hoffman, Agata Kiedrowicz, Dominika Klimek, Kaya Kołodziejczyk, Dominika Korzeniecka, Piotr Macha, Hanna Maciąg, Mariusz Marciniak, Teresa Otulak, Rafał Paradowski, Aleksandra Rajska, Patryk Raszkowski, Yara Said, Maciej Siuda, Anna Smolar, Konstanty Usenko, Gosia Warrink

Young creators

Adult creators