Collective dreams, collective care
Meeting with Paul O'Neill
Zachęta | entrance from ul. Burschego (down the stairs)
free entry
We invite you to a meeting with Paul O’Neill – curator, educator, and author – dedicated to his latest publications: Not Going It Alone: Collective Curatorial Curating (Apexart, 2024), CURIOUS (Open Editions, 2024), and the forthcoming book Beyond Care: Curatorial Para-hosting, Institutional Flip-flopping.
The event will open with a welcome by Agnieszka Pindera, Director of Zachęta. This will be followed by a conversation on collective curatorial practices with the curatorial team of the exhibition What Are Our Collective Dream? Global Connections – Abandoned Friendships – Taras Gembik, Joanna Kordjak, and Antonina Stebur. The participants will share reflections on the theory and practice of collaborative exhibition-making.
After a short coffee break, Paul O’Neill will present the main ideas from Beyond Care, a book exploring what art institutions can learn from smaller organizations and the methods of “para-hosting” – practices of care, collaboration, and public engagement that challenge established institutional paradigms.
The event is open to the public. We particularly welcome students of art history, curatorial studies, and related disciplines.
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17.10.2025 – 08.02.2026What Are Our Collective Dreams?Global Connections — Abandoned FriendshipsThe exhibition opens the archives of Zachęta to revisit the networks of global artistic relations forged during the socialist era in Poland. Contemporary artists confront these histories with the present, asking what remains of the “internationalist friendships” from before 1989, and how they might shape our understanding of a shared past.
Zachęta – National Gallery of ArtZachęta