A Home Together / Спільні домівки

“Спільні домівки / A Home Together” is a family exhibition about what a home is and what gives us a sense of security - especially in a changing world. The project was created with people who have experience of migration, particularly from Ukraine. It grew out of a series of creative workshops in which children and adults made collages, embroidery, sounds and ceramic forms, then talked about home - understood not as a physical place but as a collection of memories, relationships and everyday experiences.

It is a multisensory exhibition, made to be touched and experienced, prepared in Polish, English and Ukrainian. On show until 30 June 2028 on the ground floor of the museum at ul. Kredytowa 1.

What to expect

Six themed rooms, each built from one workshop series. Nothing here sits behind glass: in several rooms visitors add something of their own, and the museum says outright that the show changes with everyone who walks through it.

• Room 1, collages - symbols of home and of moving house; you can add a memory of your own.
• Room 2, embroidery - workshop embroidery next to archival material, embroidery as a protective charm; visitors can create their own protective symbol.
• Room 3, sound - children’s voices, everyday noises, snatches of song; visitors can leave a sound behind.
• Room 4, kitchen - family rituals and the food traditions of Poland, Ukraine and Crimea.
• Room 5, ceramics - tiles carrying written memories and dreams, inspired by Kosiv pottery from the Hutsul region.
• Room 6, the bed - a giant pillow-and-blanket fort for talking about what makes you feel safe.

The most useful thing for a parent is the set of room-by-room guides: conversation topics, games and notes from a psychologist, in versions for ages 4-8 and 9-13. They are printed in the rooms and downloadable as PDFs from the exhibition page, but only in Polish and Ukrainian. Curator: Ivanna Berchak; set design: Filip Pietuch. One of the objects with its own audio description is an 1861 stove tile by an unknown maker.

Access is a real strength: texts and audio description in Polish, Ukrainian and English, video guides in Polish and Ukrainian Sign Language, tactile graphics, objects you may touch and places to sit down.

Context

The museum’s partner is the Ukrainian House Foundation (Fundacja Ukraiński Dom), a Polish NGO founded in 2009 and known until 2022 as the Our Choice Foundation. Since 2014 it has run the Ukrainian House in Warsaw, a meeting place that also offers Polish lessons and legal advice to migrants. It also hosts the Ukrainian Women’s Club, which cooks with families at one of the workshops below. The tiles in Room 5 draw on Kosiv painted ceramics, a Hutsul craft from what is now western Ukraine, inscribed on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage lists in 2019. The museum itself dates from 1888 and holds a sizeable Hutsul collection, so the theme is not borrowed.

Tickets and time

• One ticket covers the permanent exhibitions and this family show: 21 PLN regular, 16 PLN reduced. There is no separate ticket.
• Children under 7 go free; school pupils and students up to 26 pay 5 PLN with ID.
• Free on Thursdays - the museum’s price list says free Thursday covers all current exhibitions, this one included.
• Large Family Card (Karta Dużej Rodziny): 25% off admission.
• Hours: Tuesday-Friday 10:00-18:00, Saturday-Sunday 11:00-18:00, closed Mondays. Last entry 17:30.
• No booking for individual visits: buy at the desk or online. Workshops are different - the museum says they often sell out, so buy those ahead.
• With a pushchair: a lift beside the main entrance (press the intercom) and two elevators inside. Free lockers on level -1. Photos are allowed, without flash.
• How long: the museum suggests at least two hours for all its exhibitions. Give the family show an unhurried slot of its own - children touch, record and talk here rather than walk past.
• English on site: labels and general audio description in English; the printed family guides are Polish and Ukrainian only.

Who it is for: families with children roughly 4 to 13, the ages the guides are written for, and especially families who have moved to Poland, since Ukrainian is on equal footing with Polish. An adult without children who came for folk art will find it in the permanent galleries on the same ticket.

Events

Family workshops from “Domy współtworzone” (“Homes Created Together”), the museum’s two-year programme around the exhibition running through 2026 and 2027. Each child comes with an adult; sessions are in Polish and Ukrainian, not English.

• 26.09.2026, 12:00-14:00 - “Miasto wspólne” (Shared City), a family workshop on green space in the city, making jar gardens, ages 5+, 10 PLN (museum events listing): details
• 20.09.2026, 12:00-15:00 - “Przepis na dom” (A Recipe for Home), cooking cheese chebureki with the Ukrainian Women’s Club, ages 5+, Polish Sign Language interpreting, 10 PLN (museum events listing): details
• 19.09.2026, 14:00-16:00 - “Budujemy bazę!” (Let’s Build a Fort!), a workshop on safe places with visual artist Yaroslava Holysh, ages 4+, 10 PLN (museum events listing): details

What the press says

No English-language coverage found so far.

• Polish Radio Two, “Folkowy Poranek Dwójki” (22.04.2026, Mariana Kril): a conversation with coordinator Justyna Dominiak, curator Ivanna Berchak and set designer Filip Pietuch about the show as an invitation to think of Warsaw as a shared city - podcast, in Polish
• SZUM (04.09.2026, editorial team): the art magazine lists the show in its “Do zobaczenia” (worth seeing) section with the museum’s description and installation views - a recommendation, not a review - article, in Polish

See also

• State Ethnographic Museum permanent exhibitions - on the same ticket; the ceramics show “Clay, Sinter, Form” pairs well with the tile room.
• “Everything Will Change” - the museum’s open-air show on aleja gen. Pattona, until 27 October 2026, free; four installations on crisis and the appropriation of space, closer to an adult audience than to children.

Tickets and opening hours are on the museum’s website.

Museum profile: State Ethnographic Museum.