Cracow Art Week KRAKERS

MOCAK will be taking part in the 15^th Cracow Art Week KRAKERS, 23–30 April 2026. The central event of the anniversary edition will be the presentation of one of the winning projects of the Laboratory section competition at the Beta Gallery.

The competition in the Laboratory section of Cracow Art Week KRAKERS is addressed both to individual artists and collectives working in the field of contemporary visual arts. The main goal of the competition is to support independent artists, as well as those just entering the art scene, and to enable them to present their premiere projects. The competition creates an opportunity for self-organisation for both individual artists and collectives, focusing primarily on ephemeral project rooms or pop-up spaces.

The 15^th edition invites applications from artists who identify with the above-mentioned approach. The organisers are interested in projects that show how new forms of sensitivity, community, and thinking can emerge from ‘lower-ranking’ objects, images, ideas and stories.

The call for entries is open access, and submissions are evaluated by a jury of experienced experts. They are directors of institutions, academics, and often also curators and critics working with the most prestigious academic and institutional centres, including Adam Budak, Agnieszka Jankowska-Marzec, Łukasz Murzyn, Arkadiusz Półtorak and Łukasz Surowiec. The awards in this competition are funded by the Hestia Artistic Journey Foundation.

The evaluation criteria will be artistic quality, conceptual coherence, innovation, and consistency with the theme of this edition: Hunters, Gatherers, Practitioners of the Future. Selected concepts will receive financial awards to support their implementation.

Cracow Art Week KRAKERS is Poland’s largest cyclical, grassroots event dedicated to the visual arts. It is organised by the Wschód Sztuki | East of Art Foundation. It brings together cultural institutions, traditional galleries and creative communities, integrating a variety of entities – art colleges and ephemeral initiatives – creating a network of co-operation based on dialogue and accessibility.

This year’s programme, centred around the theme Hunters, Gatherers, Practitioners of the Future, includes exhibition openings, performances, and the Laboratorium, the project competition section. The theme shows contemporary artists as gatherers and metaphorical hunters who work with what they find – objects, images and ideas relegated to the margins of mainstream narratives. Their approach resembles the work of a bricoleur as defined by Claude Lévi-Strauss: someone who creates using what is at hand, giving new meaning to recycled materials and traces of earlier stories.