2014

During a mobile exhibition, 10 works of 5 international artists were presented in selected cities and towns of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship (Toruń, Bydgoszcz, Włocławek, Inowrocław, Chełmno, Golub-Dobrzyń). An artistic group, the Rusz Gallery (Joanna Górska and Rafał Góralski), invited 3 American artists, Susan O’Malley, Christine Wong Yap and Leah Rosenberg, to take part in the project. The works were presented by means of mobile billboards that are usually used to show advertisements. It was an unusual travelling exhibition of thought- and reflection-provoking pictures.

Polish people are not optimists. It results, i.a from our complicated history. Such an attitude towards reality hinders their development, satisfaction and happiness. Do we have a chance to become more optimistic in Poland and in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship? What do experts think about it? A world-renowned social psychologist, Philip Zimbardo, claims: “There is no situation that cannot be used to change the world for the better. An optimist is not someone who looks at the world through rose-coloured glasses. I see evil in the world, in myself and in people. But I concentrate on how to resist it, how to minimise its negative effects, and not on complaining. Solidarity is the past that you can derive power from. If you managed to convert totalitarianism into democracy without a war, you can do everything. If it is not an optimistic message, what is the one then? You can create a new generation of Polish heroes that will not die, but live and build a positive, optimistic and open nation. I believe in that. Well, but I am already an optimist”.

By means of the mobile exhibition, we induced the inhabitants of the region to look at themselves and the place they live from a different – more positive – perspective, to feel at home and be more eager to undertake activities aiming at improving themselves, their relationships with other people and their environment. The mobile exhibition began on 2 June 2014 at 12.00, in front of the Marshal Office in Toruń and then it visited selected towns of our region.

The exhibition was accompanied by billboard workshops with children and teenagers. They were conducted in small towns of our voivodeship, at schools: in Lisewo, Obrowo, Węgiersk and Gałczewo. The workshops were led by the artists from the Rusz Gallery. The children answered to a question: what does happiness mean to you? Their one-word answers, written on a mobile billboard, were presented along with the mobile exhibition. A total of 160 people participated in the workshops. For most of them, as many as 45 people, happiness was a ‘family’, 23 people wrote ‘love’ and 18 people chose ‘friendship’. For the children happiness was also a smile, joy, freedom, dreams, health as well as their interests: dance, music, photography and volleyball. The exhibition was a unique opportunity to hear the voices of the youngest inhabitants of our voivodeship.

The event was co-financed from the European Regional Development Fund under the Regional Operational Programme of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship for 2007-2013 and the Kuyavian-Pomeranian budget.

The project partners: the Nicolaus Copernicus Middle School in Gałczewo, the Commune Middle School in Lisewo, the John Paul II Complex of Schools in Obrowo and the Józef Sołtykiewicz Primary School in Węgiersk