Developed by the Zbigniew Raszewski Theater Institute and the National Institute of Music and Dance under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Space of Art is a program to establish nationwide, interdisciplinary cultural institutions, carried out in cooperation with the Ministry, local governments, non-governmental organizations, art universities as well as universities of the private sector and those based on existing cultural institutions.
The program’s priority purpose lies in enabling artists to work by implementing their ‘permanent address’ they lack. Space of Art brings also a wide educational offer to engage local communities and efforts to expand cultural offer and access to it.
The activities carried out as part of the Space of Art are based on four foundations – artistic, educational, social, and pro-health (dance). The main goal of the operators is to support local art communities in presenting their activities, developing the educational and animation offer, and expanding audiences’ competences.
In 2021, the program was in 8 cities: Lublin (theatre and dance), Łódź (theatre and dance), Olsztyn (theatre), Rzeszów (theatre), Zielona Góra (theatre), Katowice (dance), Kielce (dance) and Bialystok (dance). In the long-term perspective, activities under ‘SoA’ are meant to cover the entire country. In the first year – during the program check – among the activities carried out were not only presentations of performances (including first-night performances), but also social initiatives, i.e., various types of workshops, animation activities, including dance cinema shows or recordings of performances for adults and kids. The program’s activity that supported artists directly were artistic residencies which, as a result often produced workshop performances.
In the theatre ‘section’, events within the framework of the Space of Art initial program gathered over 230,000 participants (with approx. 400 artists and 170 collaborators involved). The resulting events were preceded by entities’ attempts to diagnose and establish common issues and cooperation frameworks between them.
