Art Plot | Działka Sztuki: Academia Działkowa
In 2025, Natalia Kalicki and Milena Soporowska launched Akademia Działkowa, (‘Allotment Academy’) an open plein air academy project located in and around Działka Sztuki (‘Art Plot’).
Our project is an ongoing rehearsal of how to rest and hold space together.
To test the forest allotment as a site for creative experimentation and peer-to-peer education, we planned a series of public workshops with a focus on practices of gleaning. We prioritized collaborative modes of engagement with each other and practiced attuning ourselves to the rhythms of the forest allotment- in a space and time away from the usual rush and pressure of multiple obligations. Our method took on a principle Tricia Hersey names rest as resistance- where naps and daydreaming are key to healing and to resisting the conditions of late capitalism. This proved no easy task. In reading Jonathan Crary’s work we were also reminded that in such conditions, the demands of capitalism claim even what seem like the most internal and private of endeavors: our dreams.
Taking these texts and practices as a point of departure, throughout the residency period we reflected on the structural possibilities of building a sustainable para-institution through the possibilities of the Działka. From the get go we were also inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, to look for new narratives that re-frame what matters most, especially when we base these visions of living on the model of the unhurried ‘collector’. The terms of gleaning reinforced our process-based approach, where various materials and experiences are gathered and a sense of community is built on a practice of everyday gestures. On the Działka the gleaners gather time, establish new relationships and nurture existing ones, allowing time for play, pause and reflection.
This project was developed with the support of WOK, Warsaw Observatory of Culture, in the context of a residency program under the overarching theme of Resilience. With their support we were able to pay workshop leaders for their time and knowledge, and all gatherings and workshops were free of charge for attendees.
Collective Gatherings
01.06.2025 | We invited artist and biologist Krysia Jędrzejewska-Szmek, who led us out into local terrain and grounded our knowledge in the relentless murmur of the meadows, in oak and pine forests, on carpets of blueberries and moss. Krysia taught us new tools for listening, drawing, and note taking, and for getting to know local flora and fauna.
21.06.2025 | We invited Anna Elsner to teach us the craft of basket weaving, an artisanal practice with a long history in the region. With the summer solstice upon us and with Ursula le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction on our minds, we wove vessels in preparation for new narratives. In weaving we learned about repetition as a calming agent.
27.07.2025 | We invited crochet expert and artist, Weronika Galdamez, to teach us how to crochet an ‘abstract mushroom.’ Rather than aiming to produce a particular shape or item, we created the time and space to experiment with the form itself. In this slow practice, we learnt a kind of openness, of the possibilities of play when learning a new skill.
02.08.2025 | We invited Monika Czajkowska to help ground our tired bodies during a yoga session. Together we tested our limits, learned to breath, and practiced our patience. Many of us realized we often do not have the time, nor make the time, for practices that are healing. We spent the rest of the day exploring the area of Urle and around the river Liwiec.
