The Krzysztof Findziński Collection. A Cabinet of Memories. Asia

What is a collection? A set of things - or a record of a life?

The temporary exhibition The Krzysztof Findziński Collection presents objects from Asia, most of them donated to the Asia and Pacific Museum by Krzysztof Findziński, a collector who is also the subject of the show. It draws on the idea of the old cabinets of curiosities, the forerunners of today’s museums: spaces in which objects from different cultures, periods and orders stood side by side. Its biographical approach makes it possible to follow how personal experiences became the beginning of a lifelong passion for collecting.

The narrative introduces Krzysztof Findziński (born 1948) and the history of his family, because experiences from his childhood and youth played an important part in his path to collecting, including growing up among objects brought back from Asia by his father. A childhood spent in Romania, the Netherlands and Vietnam, his parents’ interests and his own later journeys to Asia all shaped his aesthetic sensibility.

The exhibition culminates in the collector’s room, a space reconstructed from photographs of Krzysztof Findziński’s own flat. The more than 150 objects gathered there convey the atmosphere of the collector’s daily life.

What to expect

The show draws on a gift the museum received in 2026 (289 objects from a single collector) and on objects he has lent. The layout is easy to follow. Nine selected pieces stand in the central section, each with two layers of text: Krzysztof Findziński’s own memory of how he came by it, and the curator’s note on what it was used for back home. At the end is the “collector’s room”, more than 150 objects reconstructed from photographs of his own flat.

A few objects worth finding (details from the museum’s audio-description texts):

• Ceremonial sabre - Vietnam, late 19th century, with a grip of mammoth tooth. The collection began with this sabre and a sword: in 1962, aged 13, Findziński spotted them in a Hanoi antique shop and sold his bicycle to buy them.
• Travel altar - China, first half of the 20th century, a small lacquered wooden cabinet; the museum lists a travel altar among the first souvenirs of that same trip.
• Bronze drum - Myanmar or Laos, a casting more than 60 cm across.
• Satsuma teapot - Japan, 19th century, stoneware.
• S-shaped trumpet - India, mid-20th century, a metre of copper. The second episode of the museum’s film series is about a different instrument, a Tibetan temple trumpet the collector found at a flea market.

For children there is a comic, “Podróż do Wietnamu” (Journey to Vietnam), with a task: find three objects from the drawings in the galleries. The exhibition page also carries short animations by students of the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology and the first episode of the museum’s “Stories of the Collection” series, in Polish. Even without the language, the bicycle-for-a-sabre story is worth knowing before you go, because it sets up the whole show.

Curator: Dr Maria Szymańska-Ilnata; set design: Dr hab. Anna Skołożyńska-Cieciera.

Context

Krzysztof Findziński (born 1948) is a Polish graphic artist and painter who studied at the fine arts academies in Belgrade and Warsaw. His father, Tadeusz Findziński, was a diplomat, painter and collector, Poland’s ambassador to the Netherlands (1951-1957), North Vietnam (1960-1963) and Yugoslavia (1967-1971), which explains a childhood spent abroad in a home full of Asian objects. The “cabinet of memories” in the title plays on the cabinet of curiosities, the 16th-century European collection in which natural wonders, art and objects from distant lands sat side by side, and from which modern museums grew. The theme suits the venue: the Asia and Pacific Museum itself was founded in 1973 on the gift of another diplomat-collector, Andrzej Wawrzyniak. The museum showed Findziński’s own prints of the Far East in 2018, and in 2025 the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum in Łódź exhibited his collection of African art.

Tickets and time

• The show is included in the museum ticket: 20 PLN regular, 12 PLN reduced. There is no separate ticket.
• Free on Thursdays - the exhibition page states plainly that entry is free every Thursday.
• Children under 7 go free. Large Family Card (Karta Dużej Rodziny) holders pay the reduced price; Koleje Mazowieckie regional rail passengers get 30% off.
• Hours: Tuesday-Sunday 10:00-18:00 (10 AM - 6 PM), closed Mondays. Last entry 17:30.
• Tickets at the desk or online.
• How long: the museum does not say. Allow about an hour for this show (our estimate), or 1.5-2 hours if you add the permanent galleries.
• Access: everything is on the ground floor with step-free entry. The show has easy-to-read texts, dyslexia-friendly texts, large print, tactile graphics, Polish Sign Language films and audio description of ten objects via QR codes. An induction loop (tour-guide system) must be requested at least one working day ahead: dostepnosc@muzeumazji.pl.
• English on site: the museum does not state it. The colophon credits English translations, but the audio-description texts are in Polish and the museum’s English web page for the show carries only the Polish text, so do not count on full English coverage.
• The show closes on Saturday, 31 October 2026.
• Getting there: ul. Solec 24 in Powiśle, about 12 minutes on foot from Centrum Nauki Kopernik metro station (line M2).

Who it is for: visitors who like the story behind an object, and families with school-age children, since the comic turns the visit into a search. If you want depth on one region, the permanent galleries on the same ticket serve you better; this show is above all one man’s life told through things. Come on a Thursday, when it costs nothing.

Events

• 26.09.2026, 11:00-15:00 - Collector’s Day (the museum does not state the language; expect Polish): at 14:00 a tour of the show led by Krzysztof Findziński, included in the ticket; at 12:00 an adult workshop on caring for home archives and photographs (20 PLN, 17 places); at 13:00 a visit to the conservation studio (10 PLN, 10 places); at 11:00 a tour of the photography show “Przemiany”. Tickets at the desk or online: programme

What the press says

No independent review found so far, in English or Polish.

• Kontynenty, issue 49 (issue announced by the museum on 07.07.2026, Dr Maria Szymańska-Ilnata): an article by the curator herself on how a 1962 journey across Siberia to Hanoi started the collection; the quarterly is a media patron of the show, so read it as promotion rather than a review - museum’s announcement, in Polish

See also

• Asia and Pacific Museum permanent exhibitions - the Sound Zone and “Journeys to the East” are on the same ticket and show how a whole museum grew out of private gifts.
• “Transformations. Old and New Photography” - the museum’s next temporary show, from 24 September 2026; a tour of it opens Collector’s Day.

Museum profile: Andrzej Wawrzyniak Asia and Pacific Museum.