Come in with confidence, and you will be warmly received - Michał Siarek's lighthouse photography exhibition at the Fort Institute of Photography, Warsaw

“Proszę śmiało wchodzić, zostaniecie dobrze przyjęci” (Come in with confidence, and you will be warmly received) is Michał Siarek’s exhibition at the Fort Institute of Photography about the light of a lighthouse in northern Norway. The museum calls it the northernmost mainland lighthouse in the world. The curator is Karolina Ziębińska, and the exhibition runs 16 September 2026 - 29 November 2026.

The Fort Institute of Photography on the exhibition (our translation):

For the physicist and philosopher Gaston Bachelard, light was a sign of presence and vigilance, and at the same time of watching out and of solitude. For the artist and teacher László Moholy-Nagy it was the most interesting of materials - a substance from which new forms can be built. For the people of the far North it is a measure of time: it disappears for months and returns, setting the rhythm of the year and dividing it into a dark part and a light one. For the people of the sea - the hope of reaching the shore safely. We find a little of all this in Michał Siarek’s new project, which tells of the many-sided experience of light.

The photographer spent more than four years in all in the Norwegian village of Gamvik, one of them as keeper of the northernmost mainland lighthouse in the world. The local museum asked him to document its old mechanism - one of the last still working light apparatuses with Fresnel lenses. This assembly of huge glass rings multiplies the light source many times over, so that the signal can reach far out to sea. The invention, which revolutionised world shipping in the mid-19th century, was then celebrating its two-hundredth birthday.

The exhibition presents part of the documentation gathered over months: of light phenomena occurring in the lighthouse itself and caused by the light it sends out, but also of other phenomena connected with light and its absence in a place the sun’s rays do not reach for two months a year. The experience of the lighthouse is radiant: flickering, scattering, reflections, afterimages. Tending the lighthouse became a ritual of keeping watch. The recurring flash, visible from far away, does more than mark a position on the map. It suggests that somewhere in the darkness there is someone else, an observer or a traveller, for whom the light remains a sign of someone’s distant presence.

The title sentence evokes the hospitality and warmth that flow not only from light but also from the presence of another person. It is a fragment of a stanza that Goethe placed beneath a depiction of his house. In the conditions of the far north, extreme for most of the year, survival requires not only light, warmth and shelter but also community.

The project was made during the modernisation of Norwegian lighthouses, which ended the era of Fresnel apparatuses and of elaborate optical systems going back to the 19th century. Technologies replaced by more efficient systems are gradually disappearing from the places they were designed for. Siarek, however, does not create a nostalgic monument to old engineering. He tries only to capture light in its countless forms of physical presence, and recreates at the IFF an experience that can no longer be lived in its original place.

The artist’s biography is on the exhibition page of the IFF website; the English version of the page gives the description of the exhibition and the biography in English.

What to expect

According to the museum, the exhibition shows part of the documentation that Siarek gathered over months. It covers light phenomena in the lighthouse itself and in the light it sends out, and also light and its absence where the sun’s rays do not reach for two months a year. The museum lists flickering, scattering, reflections and afterimages.

The photographs are accompanied, according to the press release, by the original light mechanism dismantled from the lighthouse. It is meant to bring into the exhibition the lighthouse’s way of experiencing light: its rhythm, its intensity and its power to transform a space for a moment. The Warsaw Gallery Weekend programme and “Vogue Polska” describe it as a light object built from historical lighthouse parts and lenses.

The Warsaw Gallery Weekend programme gives the titles of three works from the series, all from 2023: “Excavations #1”, “Light phenomena #6” and “Waiting for lighthouse master”.

The project was made during the modernisation of Norwegian lighthouses, which ended the era of Fresnel apparatuses. The museum stresses that Siarek builds no nostalgic monument to old engineering; instead he recreates at the IFF an experience that can no longer be lived in its original place.

The title of the exhibition is, as the museum writes, a fragment of a stanza that Goethe placed beneath a depiction of his house. It evokes the hospitality and warmth that flow not only from light but also from the presence of another person.

At a joint opening on 16 September 2026 the museum opened two separate exhibitions in the IFF space: this one and Michał Diament’s “Formy światła” (Forms of Light). According to the opening page, they form a kind of optical diptych, and Siarek’s exhibition tells of a passing technology and the experience of a place that can no longer be repeated.

On 24 September 2026 the music performance “Strażnicy światła” (Guardians of Light) by I AM SORRY DAVE (Kuba Słomkowski) and Gilberto Bautista Ortiz, introduced by Michał Siarek, accompanied the exhibition in its space. The performance page recalls that the project grew out of experiences at a lighthouse in the far North. It adds that, with the automation of lighthouses, the question of who keeps watch over the light, human or machine, takes on new meaning.

Context

Michał Siarek, born in 1991, is according to the museum a photographer working between visual art and research, and a graduate of the Łódź Film School. Since 2021 he has worked in Northern Norway as a resident photographer, invited in turn by the Gamvik Museum, the Museum of the Reconstruction of Finnmark and the Coastal Administration Museum. He holds a grant from the Norwegian Kulturdirektoratet for 2026-2027.

According to the museum, he spent more than four years in all in the village of Gamvik. The local museum asked him to document the old mechanism of the lighthouse, one of the last still working light apparatuses with Fresnel lenses. Gamvik is, as the English Wikipedia puts it, a fishing village on the northern shore of the Nordkinn Peninsula, on the Barents Sea.

The museum’s English page of the artist-led tour names the lighthouse: it is Slettnes. The English Wikipedia places it about three kilometres north of the village, in the Slettnes Nature Reserve; its light burns every year from 12 August to 24 April, and it was automated in 2005.

The museum gives two versions of how long Siarek was keeper of the lighthouse. The exhibition page and the press release speak of a year, while the November pages of the artist-led tours, Polish and English, speak of over a year.

Augustin Jean Fresnel built the Fresnel lens in 1822; according to the Polish Wikipedia it consists of concentric rings that are thinned fragments of a lens and is used in lighthouses, among other places. In an interview with Fotopolis in December 2023, Siarek said that the year marked the bicentenary of its invention and that the lenses were to be dismantled and replaced with LEDs.

His debut series “Alexander”, on the influence of the myth of Alexander the Great on the politics of today’s Macedonia, was nominated for the MACK First Book Award and won the New East Photo Prize. According to the museum, the Fort Institute of Photography showed it in 2018 as the first public presentation of the project.

The Polish Wikipedia lists Siarek among the winners of Grand Press Photo 2023 in the category “Climate, Responsibility”, for work for “The New York Times”. The museum adds that he won Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Earth Photo awards for photographs of the evacuation of animals from Ukraine. In spring 2023, as a resident of the Nida Art Colony in Lithuania, he researched the lighthouses of Nida and Pervalka.

The curator is Dr Karolina Ziębińska, an art historian specialising in photography and Central Europe, a former director of the Museum of Warsaw and, in 2014-2020, a curator at the Centre Pompidou. On Thursday 29 October 2026 she led a tour of the exhibition, speaking about the history of the photographer’s Norwegian works and the wider context of the project.

The exhibition belongs to WGW+, the Warsaw Gallery Weekend section that, according to PAP, was created for foundations, associations and cultural institutions working outside the commercial art market. The press release says the project is co-financed by the City of Warsaw, with the town of Skarżysko-Kamienna, Fujifilm and Oknoplast as partners.

Tickets and time

• Where: in the space of the Fort Institute of Photography, in building 2 of Fort Mokotów at ul. Władysława Szpilmana 6, beside the separate exhibition “Formy światła”. The entrance to the Fort grounds is from ul. Racławicka. Directions are on the museum profile.
• When: the exhibition runs 16 September 2026 - 29 November 2026; the museum extended it because of strong interest (see Updates).
• Ticket: according to the exhibition page, admission is free; the museum repeated this in its message of 6 November 2026. For selected events, such as workshops and guided tours, the IFF requires registration or a symbolic ticket and says so with each event. The pages of both artist-led tours give neither a fee nor booking, so check the events calendar before coming for a tour.
• Opening hours: the museum is open: Wed-Fri 14:00-19:00 (2-7 PM), Sat-Sun 12:00-19:00 (12-7 PM), closed Mon-Tue. Closed on 11 November 2026 (Independence Day).
• Language: according to the museum, its exhibitions and events are held in Polish unless the programme description says otherwise. The English page of the exhibition gives the description of the exhibition and the artist’s biography, but says nothing about English labels on site.
• Photos: photographing the exhibitions is allowed for private use, without flash.
• Accessibility: the museum wrote on 6 November 2026 that it is updating its accessibility statement; accessibility needs can be sent to biuro@fiff.org.pl.
• Who it’s for: people interested in photography whose subject is light, and in the old technology of lighthouses. The original light mechanism from the lighthouse stands beside the photographs, so the exhibition will also speak to those more curious about old lighthouse optics than about photography.
• Worth combining: “Formy światła” by Michał Diament runs in the same space until the same day, and the museum presents the two exhibitions as an optical diptych. Best seen in a single visit.
• When to come: if you want to hear about the project from its author, choose 14 November or 29 November, the last day of the exhibition, when Siarek leads tours of it (see Events).
• Who can skip it: anyone who needs English texts on site, since according to the museum its exhibitions are held in Polish. The description of the exhibition and the artist’s biography can be read in English before the visit on the museum’s English page of the exhibition.

Events

• 14 November 2026 (Saturday), 12:00 - an artist-led tour by Michał Siarek on the challenges of documenting light phenomena in northern Norway in polar days and nights, and on the making of the project. The event page gives no fee or booking (event page).
• 29 November 2026 (Sunday), 12:00 - a repeat of the artist-led tour on the last day of the exhibition. The event page gives no fee or booking (event page).

What the press says

The three press pieces on the exhibition are a preview, a Warsaw Gallery Weekend selection and an interview with the artist.

• GQ Polska (6 September 2026, Agnieszka Nieradzka): recommends both IFF exhibitions for the autumn, linked by a fascination with light. It describes Siarek’s as a story of a vanishing world and of a technology whose experience can no longer be recreated - gq.pl.
• Vogue Polska (18 September 2026, Anna Sańczuk): lists it among ten worth seeing at Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2026, as a story of northern light setting the rhythm of life on Norway’s Arctic edge - vogue.pl.
• Polskie Radio dla Zagranicy (27 September 2026, Ewa Plisiecka): in “Magazyn Redakcji Polskiej” the guest, Siarek, talks about his photographs of Norwegian lighthouses; the episode description calls the exhibition “Światło” (Light) - polskieradio.pl.

Updates

• 2026-11-06 - the museum wrote that because of strong interest the exhibitions had been extended to 29 November 2026, and warned that old dates may still appear on some graphics. The IFF home page announces the extension of the exhibitions to 29 November (source: fiff.org.pl).

See also

• Fort Institute of Photography - the profile of the museum in whose space the exhibition is on.
• Forms of Light - photographs and glass by Michał Diament, the other exhibition of the joint opening, in the same IFF space.

Museum profile: Fort Institute of Photography.