The Museum has undertaken activities to meet the current, local problems of Krakow residents, wishing to show them in a wider context. This has become possible thanks to the dynamism of the artists. The social artistic actions carried out by MOCAK aim to transform the city space, build interrelations between residents and creative communities and encourage attitudes which favour caring for what we share. To that end, the MOCAK team animates and co-ordinates local actions and promotes the integration of numerous diverse Krakow communities in the process of building and transforming urban space. Through showing the value and significance of art in the context of daily life, we would like to encourage larger audiences for art.

One of MOCAK’s key tasks is to alter the existing image of Zabłocie and to initiate transformations which lead to a social and cultural renewal of the district. To this end, the Podgórze Project has been launched, which places MOCAK at the heart of Zabłocie and makes it the main animating force in the area. We hope to place MOCAK firmly in the history of Zabłocie and to develop a special connection to the local residents so that the Museum may indeed become a factor enriching the quality of their lives. Specific educational activities will be targeted at the residents of Zabłocie. The Museum will seek to elicit a positive response from the locals and will aim to ensure that this post-industrial area, ear-marked for planned renovation, will become a zone friendly to contemporary art. This will be the general orientation of our activities, since it is an essential condition of the effectiveness of a new cultural institution in an existing location that it integrate creatively with its environment, thereby becoming a fertile source of new initiatives and investment.

Co-ordinator: 
Elżbieta Sala, sala@mocak.pl

Collaboration:
Magdalena Mazik, Iwona Wojnarowicz, Jadwiga Sawicka, Zofia Kerneder

Leaflets is a social art project carried out by students of higher art schools with the support both of the Art Department of the Pedagogical University and MOCAK the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow. The project’s arena has been two Krakow districts: Krowodrza and Podgórze. As one of the activities, students have been placing in stairways and in public space leaflets on identity and interpersonal relationships. The first edition of the project took place on 14 June during the event HAPPY CITY. The Pedagogical University in Krowodrza. Art and Education in the process of revitalisation of public space and relations. The Krowodrza School of Activities. The collaboration between the Museum and the University has arisen out of the similarity of the goals that both institutions have. The community of the Art Department of the Pedagogical University aims to strike up a dialogue and build positive relations with the residents of the district in which the Department building is located. The MOCAK team has followed a similar lodestar. In carrying out the  Podgórze Project, we would like to build bridges between contemporary art and the daily lives of those who live in the area. Part of Podgórze is represented by the Zabłocie post-industrial zone and it is there that the Museum has its home. Concept for the project Leaflets: Magdalena Klimkowicz (WS UP), Elżbieta Sala (MOCAK), Martyna Tokarska (WS UP).

This was an artistic and social project carried out under the auspices of the 4th Grolsch ArtBoom Festival in Krakow. The campaign raised the question of modern, invisible fortifications in Krakow, taking as its protagonists the city’s inhabitants, who participated in the workshops devoted to the use of GPS technology in art in order to map out the areas of the city that they perceived as strongholds. The workshop was led by Krzysztof Mazur. Elżbieta Sala was the curator of the project.

For more information visit: www.niewidzialni-niewidzialne.pl