Resources - ten raw materials at the State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw

“Zasoby” (Resources) is a new temporary exhibition at the State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw about natural raw materials and their impact on history, the economy and social relations, built around a critique of extractivism. The museum presents ten raw materials, from water and sand to cobalt and silk, through objects from all of its collections. The exhibition will be on at the museum’s main building 21 November 2026 - 30 May 2027; the opening is planned for 21 November 2026.

The State Ethnographic Museum on the exhibition (our translation):

All objects have their beginning in a raw material - extracted, cut or grown. They carry traces of the processes that shaped the modern world. The exhibition “Resources” prompts questions: who has the right to resources, who profits from them and who bears the highest costs of obtaining them?

Difficult stories hidden in objects

What do a Polish church-fair gingerbread, an American housewife’s kitchen sign and Fidel Castro’s Cuban machete have in common? “Resources” brings together objects from all the collections of the State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw. The exhibition breaks with the neutrality of objects, revealing their unobvious, often dark sides. The axis of this story is a critique of extractivism as a model of unlimited exploitation of resources. It shows violence, exploitation, social inequality and environmental degradation. It draws attention to the striking continuity of these phenomena - from the age of colonial conquest, through the industrial revolutions, to the present day.

An alternative map of the world and voices of resistance

Mines, plantations and transport routes form a complex network of global connections. The exhibition proposes an alternative vision of the cartography of the world - based not on political borders but on economic, ecological and social dependencies. “Resources” is devoted to ten natural raw materials, such as cobalt, sugar, silk and oil. Each of them has its own island, with texts, objects, data, tactile elements and recordings of people working as activists and researchers in places connected with their extraction. Giving a voice to these people draws attention both to the scale of today’s crises and to possible ways of dealing with them - cooperation, mutual care and responsibility for a shared future.

What to expect

The exhibition is devoted to ten raw materials: water, wood, sand, oil, cotton, coal, cobalt, sugar, silver and silk. Each has its own island with texts, objects, data, tactile elements and recordings of people working as activists and researchers in the places where that raw material is extracted. Ten such islands make an exhibition for reading and listening, not only for looking at objects.

The objects come from all of the museum’s collections, and their pairings are meant to surprise: the museum asks what a Polish church-fair gingerbread, an American housewife’s kitchen sign and Fidel Castro’s Cuban machete have in common. According to the museum, the exhibition breaks with the neutrality of objects and shows violence, exploitation, social inequality and environmental degradation, from the age of colonial conquest to the present day.

Among the people and organisations whose voices the exhibition carries, the museum names Björn Alpermann of the Coal Action Network, Piotr Bednarek of Wolne Rzeki (Free Rivers), Marta Jagusztyn of the Lasy i Obywatele (Forests and Citizens) initiative, Chandan Kumar of the Indian Sugar Industry Workers Association and Rhea Lopez of India Sand Watch, as well as the organisations AfreWatch and the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights.

The museum presents mines, plantations and transport routes as a network of global connections and proposes a map of the world based not on political borders but on economic, ecological and social dependencies; the map was prepared by Filip Wesołowski.

The exhibition belongs to the museum’s exhibition programme of the same title, which also includes the temporary exhibitions “Wszystko się zmieni” (Everything Will Change) and “Czyja to ziemia?” (Whose Land?); each of them takes up the subject of extractivism in its own way. The museum opens “Czyja to ziemia?” on the same weekend.

Context

Extractivism is, according to the Polish Wikipedia, a form of capitalism that, for profit, uses or even abuses natural resources, data or human labour without adequate limits. The English Wikipedia says that the concept was coined in Portuguese, as “extractivismo”, in 1996, to describe the for-profit exploitation of forest resources in Brazil. The museum takes it as the starting point of the exhibition and understands it as the unlimited exploitation of resources subordinated to profit.

The exhibition is coordinated by Dr Maria Wodzińska, and the curatorial team, which also wrote the texts, is made up of Joanna Barczuk, Katarzyna Flis, Agnieszka Grabowska, Agnieszka Kleszcz, Małgorzata Kunecka, Patryk Pawlaczyk, Mariusz Raniszewski, Amudena Rutkowska, Dr Marta Skwirowska and Dr Maria Wodzińska. The exhibition was designed by Anna Sarnowska and Natalia Wojciechowska, and the visual identity and graphic design were prepared by Alina Rybacka-Gruszczyńska. The exhibition is co-financed by the Mazowieckie Voivodeship self-government, which runs the museum; the media patrons are Polish Radio’s Programme Two (Program Drugi Polskiego Radia), TVP Kultura, the weekly “Polityka”, and the magazines “Pismo” and “Szum”.

Tickets and time

• Where: at the main building of the State Ethnographic Museum, as a new temporary exhibition in the museum. Directions and practical information about the museum are on the museum profile.
• When: 21 November 2026 - 30 May 2027; the museum lists the exhibition among its upcoming shows and announces its opening for 21 November 2026.
• Time: the exhibition has ten islands, one for each raw material, and the museum’s guided tour of it lasts an hour; plan at least as long for a visit on your own.
• Ticket: the museum names two kinds of admission ticket: to all exhibitions, or to the temporary exhibitions only. For the first guided tour on the opening day an admission ticket to the museum is enough, with no extra charge; for the tours from 28 November you need a tour-and-visit ticket, which costs the same as a ticket for the visit alone. The dates are in the list of events.
• Language: the exhibition will have texts in Polish and in English; the English page of the exhibition on the museum’s website is titled “Resources”.
• Accessibility: the museum announces audio description of the whole exhibition, tactile graphics of selected objects, tactile elements on every island, a video guide and information in Polish Sign Language (PJM), plain-language information and places to rest. For people sensitive to stimuli it has prepared quiet hours at the temporary exhibitions, with dimmed light and fewer sounds.
• Who it’s for: people who want to understand where everyday things come from and who pays for making them, and anyone interested in ecology and the global economy: each of the ten raw materials has its own story here, with data and the voices of people from the places where it is extracted. The museum aims its guided tours and the workshop “Czego nie widać na mapie?” at teenagers and adults, and for families with children aged 6 to 13 it has prepared workshops that begin with a visit to the exhibition.
• Who can skip it: anyone looking for a survey of folk cultures region by region: the exhibition arranges its objects by raw material, not by borders, and speaks openly about violence, exploitation and environmental degradation.

Events

• 21 November 2026, 14:00-15:00 - a guided tour of the exhibition on the opening day; no extra charge, an admission ticket to the museum (to all exhibitions or to the temporary exhibitions only) is enough - event page
• 21 November 2026, 16:00-17:00 - a second guided tour of the exhibition on the opening day.
• 21 November 2026, 18:00-19:30 - the debate “Surowce naturalne a kolonializm” (Natural raw materials and colonialism), the first debate accompanying the exhibition; free tickets to be collected, places limited - event page
• 22 November 2026, 11:00-12:00 and 13:00-14:00 - guided tours of the exhibition on the opening weekend.
• 22 November 2026, 17:00-19:00 - a screening of the documentary “Silver” (2025) and a meeting with its director, Natalia Koniarz, the first in the series of film screenings accompanying the exhibition; ticketed - event page
• 25 November 2026, 17:30-19:00 - the workshop “Czego nie widać na mapie?” (What the map does not show), including open-source intelligence (OSINT), led by Filip Wesołowski; for teenagers and adults, ticketed - event page
• 25 November 2026, 18:00-20:00 - quiet hours at the temporary exhibitions “Zasoby” and “Czyja to ziemia?”: a visit with dimmed lighting and fewer sound stimuli, for teenagers and adults, aimed at people sensitive to stimuli, autistic people among them; included in the price of the temporary-exhibitions ticket, places limited - event page
• 28 November 2026, 12:00-13:00 - a guided tour; a tour-and-visit ticket (to all exhibitions or to the temporary exhibitions only) at the price of a ticket for the visit alone - event page
• 28 November 2026, 16:00-17:00 - the themed tour “Niewidzialne koszty luksusu” (The invisible costs of luxury) on silk, sugar and silver, for teenagers and adults; a tour-and-visit ticket at the price of a ticket for the visit alone - event page
• 29 November 2026, 11:00-14:00 - the family workshop “Rodziny do gliny! Woda” (Families, get your hands in the clay! Water), which begins with a visit to the exhibition; for children aged 6 to 13 and the adults with them, tickets on sale from two weeks before the event - event page
• 1 December 2026, 17:30-20:30 - “Naczynie na zasób” (A vessel for a resource), a cycle of ceramics workshops inspired by the exhibition: wheel throwing on 1 December, glazing on 15 December; 240 PLN for the two meetings, groups of six - event page
• 9 December 2026, 17:00-18:00 - a guided tour for teenagers and adults; a tour-and-visit ticket at the price of a ticket for the visit alone - event page

See also

• State Ethnographic Museum - the profile of the museum in whose main building the exhibition will be shown.
• Everything Will Change - the first part of the “Resources” programme: four installations by artist collectives in glass pavilions on the Vistula boulevard, shown until 27 October 2026.

Museum profile: State Ethnographic Museum.