How and why do we react and adapt to change or accommodate and overcome instability? How do we face up to the changing personal circumstances or shifts in our broader society and political landscape? How can we find inspiration and joy in a changing world? These are the questions posed by this partnership project between The Box, Plymouth and LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdańsk. Located at opposite ends of Europe, in the UK and Poland, those cities share similarities and differences, which impact the way their populations see, and approach change and instability.
Two interlinked exhibitions have been developed by The Box and CCA LAZNIA with support from the British Council. Inspiration stems from discussion between the Polish and British curators that took historical traumas and reconstruction as a starting point but also considered how those factors shaped two different societies and landscapes of the cities of Gdańsk and Plymouth. CCA LAZNIA’s exhibition entitled ‘Changes’ will focus on the present-day realities of the change inspired by concepts including multiculturalism, so evident in the British society. The Box’s exhibition entitled ‘The Art Resistance’ is inspired by concepts including activism, linking to British perceptions that often associate Poland with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Together the two exhibitions draw on contexts in Poland and the UK, exploring instability as something that unites both countries and cities in the way how they face new political environments, climate change, migration, conflict and issues around freedom and liberty.