Coming of Age

From 1 May to 20 September 2026, Zachęta - National Gallery of Art in Warsaw showed a group exhibition about growing up: films, installations and objects, three of them made together with teenagers, including the Ukrainian collective fra fra fra. In all, 17 artists and collectives took part in the show and its public programme.

Zachęta on the exhibition:

Coming of Age is a universal story about fragility, shame, and searching for meaning in today’s chaotic world, in which both teenagers and adults can find themselves.

How does contemporary art describe the transition from childhood to adulthood and the problems teenagers face today? Can artistic tools help them build relationships and create alternative forms of communication in a chaotic world overflowing with images and information? Are they able to provide real support during their emotional crises and restore a sense of agency?

A common theme among the films, installations, and objects presented in the exhibition is the experience of coming of age in the realities of the contemporary world. On the one hand, the war in the immediate vicinity and the climate catastrophe reinforce in teenagers the conviction that there is no certain future. On the other hand, they experience peer and systemic violence daily, which is one of the main causes of the mental-health crisis. And finally, the chaos resulting from an overload of images, fake news, and the constant pressure exerted by social media.

The artists invited to the exhibition examine the boundaries between childhood and adulthood. Matt Copson’s laser opera Age of Coming tells the story of the growing-up process and its accompanying existential anxieties. Other works address problems such as difficulty accepting one’s physicality or the search for sexual identity combined with shame and fear of judgment and rejection. Recurring themes include loneliness, withdrawal, and at the same time, a longing for group belonging. Gisèle Vienne and Mohamed Bourouissa draw attention to the tools of systemic violence used in family and social structures that serve to deprive teenagers of their voice and agency, while simultaneously highlighting the enormous political potential of this marginalized social group. Anhar Salem addresses the topic of cyberbullying, and Magda Szpecht in her interactive installation, as well as the collective fantastic little splash during workshops held throughout the exhibition, focus on contemporary threats such as political manipulation through social media, while also pointing to possibilities for conscious and creative use of digital tools.

The starting point for the exhibition was the question of the role of cultural institutions and artistic tools in providing real support to teenagers facing a serious mental-health crisis in this age group, alongside the inefficiency of the psychiatric and psychological care system and the crisis in the education system. The aim was to create a space where the voices of teenagers could resonate in various ways. Therefore, a special place is given to works created collectively by them in collaboration with artists: Marta Romankiv and Weronika Zalewska, or Ania Nowak. An important part of the exhibition is an installation designed by Dasha Chechushkova, which presents works by several young people from the Ukrainian collective fra fra fra.

The exhibition was conceived as a space for experiments that encourages the discovery of possibilities offered by film cameras, poetry, performative actions, and theatrical practices - from deepening critical thinking skills and social awareness to support in coping with emotional crises.

What to expect

The exhibition ran from 1 May to 20 September 2026. Its subject was the reality of growing up in today’s world: the mental-health crisis, social-media pressure, the nearby war, and the climate catastrophe. The starting point was a question about whether cultural institutions and artistic tools can offer real support to teenagers - at a time when the psychiatric and educational systems are failing.

The works on view included Matt Copson’s laser opera Age of Coming, Magda Szpecht’s interactive installation, and pieces by Gisèle Vienne, Mohamed Bourouissa, and Anhar Salem that explored the boundary between childhood and adulthood. Part of the exhibition was made collectively with teenagers and the artists Marta Romankiv, Weronika Zalewska, and Ania Nowak. In an installation designed by Dasha Chechushkova, works by young people from the Ukrainian collective fra fra fra were presented. Workshops led by the collective fantastic little splash, among others, were held during the run.

The works the press wrote about most:

• Pokój nastolatka (Teenager’s Room) - videos, objects and an installation by fra fra fra, mentored by Dasha Chechushkova, about war, insecurity and fear (Polish Radio Trójka, 30 April 2026, in Polish); you entered it through a black tunnel (Rzeczpospolita, 5 July 2026, in Polish).
• Szkoła (z) pytań (roughly “School of Questions”) - an installation by Marta Romankiv and Weronika Zalewska made with six teenage artists, combining sculpture and film, about how school could be reformed (Trójka).
• I Will Be Your Mirror - a video performance by Ania Nowak with Helena Wicher, Natasha Trompiz and Stefania Sural on self-acceptance, identity and closeness (Trójka).
• Corporating/discorporating - a personal film by Anhar Salem, made after her niece died as a victim of online hate (Trójka).
• Age of Coming - the second act of Matt Copson’s animated laser-opera trilogy Coming of Age, told from the point of view of an infant (Zachęta, in Polish).

The full list of artists and the archive of accompanying events are on Zachęta’s exhibition page, where the show ran under the English title Adolescence.

Context

Adolescence, as Wikipedia puts it, is the transition from puberty to adulthood, and age is only a rough marker of it: the World Health Organization counts it as 10 to 19, while some definitions stretch it as far as 30. The exhibition used that latitude. Zachęta treated adolescence as a state of mind as much as an age group, and co-curator Julia Marchand had run Extramentale, a curatorial platform devoted to teenage aesthetics in art, since 2016. The subject was not new to the gallery: in 2010 Zachęta published the catalogue of an earlier show on young people in contemporary art, Letni nieletni (roughly “Summer Minors”).

What the press says

No English-language coverage could be found; the three Polish pieces below are all there is.

• Rzeczpospolita, Plus Minus (5 July 2026, Zofia Jabłonowska-Ratajska): the free opening of the review and its lead photo concern fra fra fra and their Pokój nastolatka; the lede notes that the members of the collective were 10 to 13 when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine - Jak dziś dorastać. Niepokoje wychowanków TikToka (“How to grow up today: the anxieties of TikTok’s pupils”; in Polish, full text for subscribers only).
• Polish Radio Trójka (30 April 2026): the preview presents the show as a dialogue between generations and lists three participatory projects made especially for it - Young artists about their world (in Polish).
• LABEL (28 April 2026, MG): the preview quotes the curators saying that today’s secondary-school students, Generation Z, face problems and challenges entirely unknown to older generations - The hardships of growing up and a dialogue between generations (in Polish).

After the show

As of 21 September 2026 Zachęta had announced neither a next venue nor an exhibition catalogue. The closest thing to one is a book edited by co-curator Julia Marchand, I Am The F****** Subject: Art & Adolescence, published by Lenz Press and launched at Zachęta on 18 September 2026 (in Polish); the museum gives no price or ISBN.

One review could be found, in Rzeczpospolita (5 July 2026), with its final verdict behind a paywall; the other pieces are opening-week previews (Trójka, LABEL). Zachęta has published no attendance figure and announced no awards.

On now at Zachęta:

• Jura Shust - a multi-channel installation by the Belarusian artist about spirituality and technology, across five rooms of the same building, only until 27 September 2026.
• João Maria Gusmão. Following the White Tiger - twelve looped 16 mm film projections, until 31 October 2026.
• Home on Roots - Ana Vostruchovaitė paints the landscapes of her Vilnius childhood while Łukasz Radziszewski teaches visitors to carve bark boats; at Zachęta’s project space (Miejsce Projektów Zachęty) until 11 October 2026.

Related exhibitions on now:

• Patryk Różycki. Transformation - growing up seen from years later: paintings in which the artist returns to his own childhood in a Polish village in the 1990s, at the Museum of Modern Art until 11 October 2026.
• Adam Kozicki. War of Everyone Against Everyone - paintings about the internet, round-the-clock livestreams and identities coming apart under online pressure, the world the teenagers in this show were describing; at the Museum of Modern Art until 10 January 2027.

Museum profile: Zachęta.