Ola Kamińska & Wojtek Zrałek-Kossakowski

Season 4 of Sonic Interventions takes listeners to Poland, and is guest-curated by Adriana Raczykowski. In episodes 14 to 17, she is in conversation with Polish artists, activists and curators who intervene into society through curation, drag performance, visual arts, and podcasting. This episode features 100Lesb.com, a portrait cycle of 100 Polish lesbians and non-binary people in Warsaw. Co-curators Ola Kamińka and Wojtek Zrałek-Kossakowski touch upon reclaiming representation and queer resourcefulness as forms of intervention.

In conversation with

Aleksandra (Ola) Kamińska

Ola is a queer-feminist scholar, writer, creative and publisher, investigating topics of girlhood, queer time and related narratives in comic and youth culture. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Warsaw in Gender Studies and Queer Theory and is currently a member of the Gender/Sexuality Research Group at the American Studies Centre, University of Warsaw. In 2015, Ola founded the DIY queer-feminist zine collective Girls and Queers to the Front together with her best friend, Agata Wnuk. They organize workshops, events and publish zines in Polish and English, each centering a different topic that is examined through the lens of hundreds of participants and authors. Ola is invested in creating safer spaces of expression for the queer community and together with her partner, photographer and curator Katarzyna Szenajch, she co-created 100Lesb.com. Ola is part of the Warsaw based queer post-punk project NANA, which can be heard in this episode.

Website

100Lesb

Wojciech (Wojtek) Zrałek-Kossakowski

Wojtek is a dramaturg, writer, director and sound designer for theater and radio. In Poland, his work is tied to institutions such as Teatr Studio in Warsaw, Teatr Wybrzeże in Gdańsk, or Teatr Nowy in Poznań. Outside of Poland he has also worked as a dramaturg for the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin. As part of the socio-political platform and NGO Kultura Polityczna, Wojtek is a curator of the cultural center Jasna10, a place dedicated to provide collective, artistic and educational space for artists and creatives, through grants and residencies for example. Together with curator Elżbieta Zasińska, Wojtek co-hosted the 100Lesb.com project at the Jasna10 Cultural Center in 2021 in Warsaw.

Jasna10

Adriana Raczykowski

Adriana Raczykowski is a German-Polish researcher and graduate student in Urban Studies in the Erasmus Mundus Program “4Cities”. She curated this guest season during her time as a student research assistant at the Collaborative Research Center Intervening Arts (Leuphana University, Institute for Philosophy and Art History). Adriana is engaged in radio community, experiments with audio formats and knowledge production, and questions of heritage.

References

Katarzyna Szenajch – is a photographer and the initiator of the 100Lesb project, based in Warsaw. Katarzyna is one of the artists that created the visual material of the portraits and is Ola's collaborator and partner.

Stop Bzdurom – was a queer-feminist anarchist collective, fighting for LGBTQIA+ rights and intervening against queerphobic legislation. The group has been attributed with spreading the viral slogan “Dyke, you are not alone!” on stickers and banners.

Karolina Breguła – Let them See Us (Niech nas Zobaczą), 2003, Portrait cycle of queer couples in public space.

Hanna Jarząbek – Margin of Difference (Margines odmienności), Photo Report of Lesbians in everyday life.

Ela (Elżbieta) Zasińska – is also a Co-organizer of 100Lesb at Jasna10 Cultural Centre. Ela is involved in the Jasna10’s program for supporting marginalized artists and organizes a queer-feminist debate cycle "Ciałostanowienie".

Credits

Sounds

Romance – composed and performed by NANA Band (PL)

Visuals

Episode Cover: Exhibition 100Lesb – Photo by Paulina Czarnecka

Aleksandra Kaminska (portrait) – Photo by Katarzyna Szenajch

Podcast Info

Curation and host for this episode

Adriana Raczykowski, Student Assistant, Leuphana University Lüneburg

Podcast Founder

Dr. Layla Zami, Postdoctoral Researcher in Performance Studies, FU Berlin

Producer

Freie Universität Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Intervening Arts

(SFB 1512 Intervenierende Künste, TP B05)

Funded by

German Research Society (DFG)

In Cooperation with

FU Berlin, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft

Eufoniker Audioproduktion