Katarzyna Krakowiak-Bałka. Ecologies of Togetherness

From 7 March to 18 October 2026, MOCAK showed “Ecologies of Togetherness” in the outdoor spaces of its building, the museum’s first site-specific project built on Katarzyna Krakowiak-Bałka’s residency.

MOCAK on the exhibition:

During her year-long residency, Katarzyna Krakowiak-Bałka will be working with the architecture of the museum building. The line drawn by the artist symbolically cuts across the entire building, beginning at Lipowa Street, then passing through the patio and the Alfa Gallery, to end in the spaces on the side of Ślusarska Street.

This is the first site-specific project of its kind, based on an artistic residency and a collaboration extending over three seasons. The key here is the process itself: developing creative practice in dialogue with the environment, time and evolving working conditions.

The installation Nest will be the first edition of the residency, in which the museum building is treated as a host organism - an existing architecture that can be overwritten, renegotiated, and supplemented with additional semantic layers. Krakowiak proposes a radical shift in emphasis: from architecture conceived of as static stage design for human life to architecture as active, sensitive participation in interspecies, social and material relations.

What to expect

The residency was to unfold in stages. Its first act was the installation “Nest” (7 March - 14 June 2026), hung above MOCAK’s “pergola”, until then an abandoned, empty space behind the concrete wall with the MOCAK inscription on Lipowa Street. The artist wove it from industrial waste: cables, insulation and cords recovered through recycling. She took her cue from the colonies of African weaver birds that build shared, multi-generational nests.

Students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków helped her with the weaving. A line she drew cut through the whole building - from Lipowa Street, through the patio and the Alfa Gallery, to the spaces on the Ślusarska Street side.

The exhibition brochure announced two further acts. Act two, “Orangery”, was to turn the green patio of the Alfa Gallery into a semi-open orangery for a while, rooted in plant life. Act three, “Galleries (Transition Spaces)”, was to shift attention to the experience of flow, movement and mindful presence. The museum published no dates for these acts, and the photographs on the exhibition page document “Nest” only. No dates for the announced performances were found, either on the exhibition page or in the museum’s calendar.

MOCAK filmed the evening of 6 March 2026, when it opened this project together with six other exhibitions of the season; the film’s description names the sponsors of the “Nest” installation.

Context

Katarzyna Krakowiak-Bałka (born 1980) makes sculptures, performances and sound installations that explore the language used to describe architecture. She holds a doctorate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and a postdoctoral qualification from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. In 2012 her exhibition at the Polish Pavilion of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice received a special award. She has described herself as a “gardener”, which captures her relational, ecological approach to material and space.

“Ecologies of Togetherness” was MOCAK’s first site-specific project built on the artist’s year-long residency. In it, the museum building in post-industrial Zabłocie became a partner in the process rather than merely a venue.

Tickets and time

The project took place in the outdoor space of the MOCAK building at ul. Lipowa 4. The museum’s exhibition page listed no separate price for the installation. During the run a standard MOCAK ticket cost 30 PLN and a reduced one 20 PLN; holders of the Karta Krakowska, the city’s residents’ card, got a 20% discount. “Nest” took about a quarter of an hour to see, so the project worked best as part of a visit to the whole museum.

What the press says

NN6T (30.03.2026, editorial team; Polish-language outlet, English takeaway ours): frames “Nest” as a way of reading the museum building as a living organism. The installation becomes a starting point for thinking about how birds repurpose human-made materials in the city, and about the responsibility of architecture - article (in Polish).

Vogue Polska (06.03.2026, Anna Sańczuk; in Polish, English takeaway ours): an opening-day piece built on conversations with the artist and the curator, presenting “Nest” as a process rather than a finished object. The weaving, with cable waste donated by a recycling firm, was to continue after the opening, and performances were to activate the installation acoustically - article (in Polish).

The curator, Mirosława Bałazy, in Vogue Polska (06.03.2026, our translation): “The whole idea of this project grew out of the new format of a long-term residency. It allows the artist to spend every day with the museum building and its space” - article (in Polish).

As of 21 October 2026 no critical review turned up in a press search; both pieces are a preview and an overview.

Updates

• 2026-09-13 - added sections with artist context, ticket and visiting-hours information, and a first press mention of the exhibition. The closing date (18 October 2026) and the curator remain unchanged, reconfirmed on the MOCAK website.

• 2026-09-22 - dates rechecked on the MOCAK website: unchanged (7 March - 18 October 2026). Added the second and third acts announced in the exhibition brochure, the Thursday admission rule and the Vogue Polska piece. The events section was removed: the museum’s calendar lists no dates for the performances accompanying the project.

See also

• MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow - the museum’s profile with practical information and the permanent displays of the MOCAK Collection.
• Bunkier Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery - the contemporary art gallery on plac Szczepański, for visitors drawn to MOCAK above all by recent art.

After the show

“Ecologies of Togetherness” closed on 18 October 2026, and MOCAK has moved the exhibition to the archive on its website. The museum gives no sign that the project will travel. No exhibition catalogue was found; the free brochure, in Polish and English, can still be downloaded from the exhibition page.

The press wrote about the project in its first weeks: Vogue Polska presented “Nest” as a process, NN6T as a starting point for questions about the responsibility of architecture. No critical review was found, and the museum has published no attendance figures.

At MOCAK you can now see the permanent displays of the Collection, among them “Great Contemporaries: A Gift from Teresa and Andrzej Starmach”. From 5 December 2026 to 21 March 2027 the museum announces “Eleanor Antin: A Retrospective”.

Three current exhibitions in Krakow take up threads of this project:

• “Lares and Penates. On Building a Sense of Security in Architecture” - Poland’s project from the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, at Wawel Royal Castle until 6 January 2027. Worth it for anyone whom “Ecologies of Togetherness” got thinking about shelter.
• “Under a Knitted Sky - Installation” - a sunshade of crocheted squares made by more than a hundred people, at the Krzysztofory Palace until 26 February 2027. It too is the work of many hands, in yarn instead of cable.
• “Zofia Kulik. Instead of Sculpture. Footnotes” - a 1971 diploma work and the record of an open group’s months of work on it, at MuFo Rakowicka until 20 December 2026. As with Krakowiak-Bałka, the process is the point.

Museum profile: MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow .