PRZYPŁYW GALLERY x TAMO

T: For two weeks the gallery turned into an apartment. In such a situation the curator becomes the host and the audience the guest. For years I’ve been observing how inaccessible the world of art can be, and I started testing ways of making art spaces more approachable for people.

It was important to me to become the hostess here — to welcome people in slippers, to learn their names, to find out something about them. Attentiveness to people and creating conditions for encounters was made possible by the scale of the event. If the salon had been bigger, these gestures would have been impossible. A hundred-square-meter apartment was perfect.

One of the paintings hanging in the large room was a portrait of Clara Schumann — a pianist and composer, the wife of that Schumann, and the mother of eight children - painted by Katarzyna Swinarska. Her duties as a wife and mother prevented her from fully developing her career. Historically, literary salons were spaces of agency for women — they created the conditions for the exchange of ideas, built networks of relationships, and connected people. I’m interested in this translation: feminine care not as sacrifice, but as strength.

The Literary Salon was a form of an open home — a chance to talk about important things in an informal atmosphere.

K: Last year the city asked me to prepare a promotional book for the centenary of Gdynia. Since we had founded the contemporary art gallery Przypływ, I thought it would be interesting to tell the story of the city not only through my photographs but also through contemporary art.

Art can capture something that often cannot be described directly. When an artist works sincerely and draws from personal experience, sometimes they touch something important — something not yet named or noticed. If this happens in the context of Gdynia, their work may reveal something very true about this place.

That’s why the book became an invitation into a world that still hasn’t been fully told. It does not replace earlier publications about Gdynia; rather, it complements them by adding the perspective of art and personal experience.

We also wanted the book not to be only an object to look at, but the beginning of a conversation. That is why a space for meetings grew around it. On the gallery walls we show works by artists connected with Przypływ, and we also invite designers. Together we are trying to build something that could be called a contemporary Gdynia interior.

K: I think today Gdynia dreams of a sense of safety, harmony, and peace. Of enjoying everything we have managed to achieve as a civilization. Of appreciating things that are within reach-free, yet priceless.

Perhaps the greatest challenge is to wake up with the feeling that we are complete. That we already have a great deal. And that it is worth seeing.

T: I fully agree with Kacper. Although I would wish Gdynia even more art and more cultural events. The salon lasted only two weeks, yet we have clear proof that the need among people is enormous.

T: In the traditional sense, a curator is someone who professionally organizes exhibitions — working with artworks, content, and narrative building. I design the conditions for what will happen in a given space — for what people will do with one another. I work with relationships, emotions, and time. It’s also important for me to give agency to the audience, leaving space for them to decide.

When working on the Literary Salon, both the furniture and the art were tools that helped create conditions for reducing distance and encouraging people to stay in the space. For me, an event is a kind of medium through which I speak about human needs. Here the greatest need was balancing digital experiences with real-life encounters.

K: I think bread is one of those archetypes of home. Daily bread — something we eat and make — is very fundamental. Baking it is connected to something original, deeply rooted in human tradition.

When you cultivate sourdough and then bread grows from that sourdough, kneaded by your own hands, you can feel the material, see how it changes and rises. You take care of the whole process and then you can share it with others. It’s a kind of return to the source. When I share something we will eat, I’m sharing the work of my hands.

T: It’s worth adding that people took your sourdough starter home with them - we really gave away many jars.

K: That’s true. Sharing sourdough is deeply rooted in the tradition of sharing what is most valuable. We are also in the modernist Bankowiec building, and the space of our gallery is essentially the space of an apartment in which the kitchen plays a very important role. When you enter Przypływ, the first room you see is the kitchen.

We try to make the first question you hear: What would you like to drink — coffee, tea, water? It helps people feel at ease and introduces a completely different context for meeting. The coffee for the event also comes from a local roastery.

K: My experience of Gdynia and my understanding of it comes from a combination of two perspectives. The first is the perspective of interiors. An interior can be an apartment, but also a street where the building façades form the walls. An interior can be a forest, or the open interior of the sea — with a cliff on one side and an endless horizon on the other.

The second perspective is the space between the cloud and the land. When I fly a paraglider and look from above, I try to understand and feel the place from which Gdynia emerges.

This space has a very clear, natural order. On one side there are forests covering moraine hills; on the other, the sea. From downtown Gdynia you can reach either the beach or the forest in fifteen minutes — and the forest stretches for kilometers, giving access to primal nature. From a bird’s-eye view this becomes especially clear.

When I fly, earthly divisions and fences do not apply. You see the larger order of the place. Sometimes I dream that architects and urban planners could also experience this perspective, because then it becomes easier to feel the broader order and find within it the structure of the city and the landscape.

T: For me, experiencing space means taking all the senses into account. Sight is only one of them. I feel very close to the philosophy of feng shui — the sense of safety in an interior, the choice of materials over the hegemony of the eye. One of the fields I studied was interior architecture, but I quickly realized that I wouldn’t pursue that profession. My father always said that when choosing a career you should choose the lifestyle you want to live. Interior architects spend enormous amounts of time in front of a computer and inevitably focus mainly on the visual.

K: In recent days I had a reflection that the challenge may not lie in intellect or imagination, but in awareness of reality — in the fact that we perceive space primarily through the body. Every aspect of it affects our senses.

Of course, consciously using the language of architecture also requires knowledge of regulations, the ergonomics of human movement, and the properties of materials. Proportions, color, acoustics, and the rhythm of space and time are important — everything matters.

But equally important is awareness of one’s own body and the ability to read how it reacts to space — what signals it sends and what sensations appear within it. The mystery of the creative process lies in confronting the imagined world with the real one perceived through the body.

That’s why the practice of mindfulness is needed — presence, truly being in a place, here and now. Sometimes it can be very revealing simply to visit your own body and notice: I am sitting. I feel how I am sitting. If I then stretch or straighten up, it means I’m responding to a signal the body has just sent.