Happiness Research Laboratory. Life after Comfort-Centeredness

Happiness Research Laboratory. Life after Comfort-Centeredness
Curators’LAB Gallery, 12 Nowowiejskiego Str.
Opening: 15.05.2025, 18:00
Duration of exhibition:16.05-1.06.2025
Coordination: Bogna Świątkowska

Idea collection. Ideas and prototypes
Exhibition summarizing the Happiness Research Laboratory: Life after Comfort Assessment

Happiness Research Laboratory. Life after Comfort-Centeredness is a multi-year artistic and research project initiated in 2022 by the Goethe Institute in Warsaw, the Bęc Zmiana Foundation, and the ZK/U Center for Culture and Urban Planning in Berlin. The aim of the activities carried out by the cultural institutions participating in the project from five different Polish cities was to define new types of comfort and search for solutions that in the near future may become a response to the needs resulting from climate change, various crises and the limitations of previous habits and methods of action caused by them. The starting point was the need to move away from comfort based on the exploitation of fossil fuels and high-emission technologies. The project aimed to combine the environments of art, science, design, technology, and entrepreneurship in order to search for new ideas. It was also to encourage cultural institutions to initiate cooperation that goes beyond the accepted boundaries of disciplines.

The basis for the entire cycle was the assumption that activities initiated in the area of ​​culture have a high potential for predicting the near future, and culture understood as a branch of research and development is an important resource of the social imagination.

The project explored topics such as plant migration, urban soil regeneration, the importance of public space design for mental well-being, drinking water deficit, the potential of urban wastelands, preventing isolation and loneliness, searching for sources of optimism and designing places that encourage the formation of social bonds. The ideas were given the shape of prototype solutions, each of which addressed a problem developed in local partnerships created by entities participating in the project: the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, BWA Wrocław Galleries of Contemporary Art, the Institute of Urban Culture in Gdańsk, the Media Dizajn Association (Szczecin Culture Incubator) and the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok.

The exhibition summarizing the project shows how initially fleeting ideas take on a material form and, by turning into prototypes, give a chance to anchor them in the real world.

www.postkomfortocen.info

Organizers: Goethe-Institut Project, the Bęc Zmiana Foundation, Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (Berlin), implemented in 2024 with the support of Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation.

Bogna Świątkowska – originator, founder and chairwoman of the board of the Bęc Zmiana Foundation, with which she has implemented several dozen projects dedicated to public space, architecture and design, including research on the potential of urban social space. Initiator and editor-in-chief of the magazine dedicated to contemporary culture “Notes na 6 tygodni”. Previously editor-in-chief of the first Polish pop culture monthly “Machina” (1998–2001), author of numerous texts, interviews, radio and television programmes dedicated to contemporary popular culture. Scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2014). Member of the Social Council for Culture at the President of the Capital City of Warsaw (2012-2015), the Council for Architecture and Public Space of the Capital City of Warsaw (2015-2018), as well as the Expert Team for Local Culture at the National Centre for Culture (2015-2017). Member of the program boards of cultural and art institutions: TRAFO Trafostacja Sztuki in Szczecin, Rondo Sztuki Galeria ASP in Katowice, Art Center Galeria EL in Elbląg. Member of the Social Public Program at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Graduate of Management and Leadership at SWPS University in Warsaw. Mentor in the Mentors4Starters program. www.beczmiana.pl

Institutions operating within the Happiness Research Laboratory:

Bialystok: Arsenał Gallery (Ewa Chacianowska and Eliza Urwanowicz-Rojecka)
Gdansk: Institute of Urban Culture (Natalia Cyrzan and Anna Mituś)
Katowice: Academy of Fine Arts (Justyna Kucharczyk)
Szczecin: Media Dizajn Association / Szczecin Culture Incubator (Maciej Kowalewski and Marek Ostrowski)
Wroclaw: BWA Wrocław Contemporary Art Galleries (Katarzyna Roj)
Project curator: Bogna Świątkowska, Bęc Zmiana Foundation (Warszawa)
Curatorial cooperation: Miodrag Kuč and Matthias Einhoff, ZK/U (Berlin)
Exhibition design: Maciej Siuda Pracownia
The exhibition is held under the patronage of: NN6T