Program Committee

Every institution, especially one undergoing change, requires not only a strong and dedicated team but also external experts whose experience and knowledge support the process of transformation and development.

For us, such authorities are specialists in the fields of culture, management, and urban planning who form the KFO Program Council: Artur Celiński, Daniel Cichy (PhD), Agata Grenda, Dominika Kawalerowicz, Paweł Kubicki (PhD, professor at Jagiellonian University), Joanna Orlik (PhD), Irena Strzałkowska, Rafał Syska (PhD), and Tomasz Gutowski.

Artur Celiński

Co-founder and deputy editor-in-chief of Magazyn Miasta, supports the development of social activities and the sustainability of urban investments as part of the ‘DNA of the City’ program; specialises in building social activities; creator of cultural strategies; author of podcasts – including the “city-feeling” project about urban emotions.

Public life commentator, university lecturer, urban activist and trainer.

Daniel Cichy PhD

Musicologist, music journalist, cultural manager and publisher. He studied musicology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg. For many years, he has been associated with the Institute of Music at the Silesian University in Cieszyn and the Institute of Musicology at the Jagiellonian University.

He is the recipient of the Ray E. & Ruth A. Robinson Musicology Award, a scholar of the Deutscher Musikrat and Ernst-von-Siemens-Musikstiftung, the Polityka weekly and the Foundation for Polish Science. In addition to his academic activities, Daniel Cichy was active as a music critic and journalist. He has collaborated with Tygodnik Powszechny, Ruch Muzyczny, Polish Radio 2 and Radio Kraków; he has published essays and critical texts in the Polish (Glissando, Didaskalia, Teatr) and foreign press (Neue Musikzeitung, MusikTexte, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik). In January 2013, he became editor-in-chief of Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, and since January 2017 he has been the director and editor-in-chief of this publishing house. He was responsible, among others, for the implementation of the ‘100 for 100. Musical Decades of Freedom’ project – the largest musical project of free Poland, prepared as part of the celebrations of the 100^th anniversary of the restoration of Poland’s independence. Co-author of the objectives of the ‘Heritage of Polish Music’ program aimed at the popularisation of the 19^th-century Polish music, as well as numerous publishing, phonographic, educational, artistic and promotional projects, including new sheet music and book series. Originator of the nationwide social and educational campaign on copyright ‘You are the author – you have the right!’. He is responsible for the program of the Anaklasis phonographic brand. Member of the Board of the Polish Book Chamber since 2020; he also participates in the work of the Management Board of the Polish Music Council. In May 2021, he took up the post of editor-in-chief of Ruch Muzyczny.

Agata Grenda

Director of the Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre since September 2021. From 2006 to 2011, she worked as deputy director and curator of performing arts at the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, and was the director of this institution from 2015 to 2017.

Director of the Department of Culture in the Marshal’s Office of the Wielkopolska Province (2011–2015), where she was in charge of 21 Wielkopolska cultural institutions. She also served as vice-chair of the Wielkopolska Council for Public Benefit Activity. From 2017 to 2021, she ran ‘Grenda. Culture Production’ – a company offering training, mentoring and production services in the field of culture, public diplomacy, international promotion and communication in business and culture. Graduate of Polish philology with a specialisation in journalism and postgraduate studies in psychology in marketing and management at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Certified yoga teacher.

Dominika Kawalerowicz

Graduate of Cultural Studies at the University of Wrocław and postgraduate studies for cultural managers ‘Academy of Cultural Leaders’ conducted by the University of Economics in Krakow with the participation of Prof. Jerzy Hausner and the National Centre for Culture.

During her student days, she worked in Wrocław-based NGOs. From 2012, she worked as Head of the Programme Department in the office of the European Capital of Culture Wrocław 2016, and from 2018 to 2021 as Deputy Programming Director in the Wrocław Culture Zone. Since 2022, she has run Wrocław’s youngest cultural institution: the Wrocław Institute of Culture, which programmatically focuses on four areas: the competences of the cultural sector, support, networking (also in the international area) and the implementation of its own events in several locations around the city.

Joanna Orlik PhD

Manager, animator, lover of systemic solutions and spontaneous decisions. For more than 20 years, she has been associated with the Małopolska Institute of Culture in Krakow – a regional cultural institution developing the cultural sector in the Małopolska Province; since 2007, she has been its director.

She created and ran for 5 years the interdisciplinary quarterly Autoportret. Pismo o dobrej przestrzeni [Self-Portrait. Writing about Good Space] dedicated to understanding what surrounds us. In 2007, she defended her PhD thesis on the significance of Polish culture for Polish–Russian relations in the 1960s at the Faculty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian University. Author and co-ordinator of the Cultural Education Laboratory for the Warsaw Cultural Education Programme, a two-year development programme for employees of Warsaw’s cultural centres. Former president of Forum Krakow – an association of people working for the development of culture animation in Poland. Personally she believes that a lot can be done.

Irena Strzałkowska

Attaché at the Permanent Delegation of Poland to UNESCO in Paris from 1974 to 1981. Later she became Deputy Director of the Organisational and Legal Department in the Office of the Cinema Committee, being responsible for the promotion of Polish film abroad. Deputy Director of the Tor Film Studio from the early 1990s to 2019.

Polish representative in the Eurimages Fund from 1991 to 2020. Member of the Polish Film Academy and the European Film Academy. In 2019, she became Vice President of the Management Board of the Polish Producers Alliance (KIPA); since 2022, she has been its President. She has worked with the great names of Polish cinema: Krzysztof Zanussi, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Agnieszka Holland, Magdalena Piekorz, Wojciech Marczewski, and in many international co-productions. In 2021, she was awarded the Officer’s Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture for her contribution to the development of cultural co-operation between Poland and France.

Rafał Syska, PhD

Film historian and specialist in contemporary cinema. Professor at the Institute of Audiovisual Arts of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. His publications to date include Film i przemoc. Sposoby obrazowania przemocy w kinie [Film and Violence. Ways of Depicting Violence in Cinema] (2003), Zachować dystans. Filmowy świat Roberta Altmana [Keeping Your Distance. The Film World of Robert Altman] (2008), Poezja obrazu. Filmy Theo Angelopoulosa [The Poetry of the Image. Films of Theo Angelopoulos] (2008), Filmowy neomodernizm [Neo-Modernism in Film] (2014), Historia filmu. Od Edisona do Nolana [Film History. From Edison to Nolan] (2015).

He was the editor or co-editor of several books, including the four-volume Historia kina [History of Cinema] (from 2009). Scholar of the Polityka Weekly Foundation, the Foundation for Polish Science (twice) and the Kosciuszko Foundation. Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York. He has taught at universities of London, Brno, Vilnius, Malaga and Coimbra. Originator and editor-in-chief of the EKRANy magazine (2011–2018). Curator of Stanley Kubrick (2014) and Wajda (2019) exhibitions at the National Museum in Krakow. Since 2016, he has been Director of the National Film Culture Centre in Łódź, where he is responsible, e.g., for the implementation of the Łódź – UNESCO Film Creative City project. Author of the programme concept of the institution and its permanent exhibitions.

Paweł Kubicki PhD, Professor of the Jagiellonian University

Sociologist and lecturer at the Institute of European Studies of the Jagiellonian University and at the Faculty of Interior Design of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. He specialises in research on socio-cultural aspects of urban development.

He is the author of dozens of publications on this subject, including seven books, such as: Miasto w sieci znaczeń. Kraków i jego tożsamości [The City in the Web of Meanings. Krakow and its Identities] (2010), Wynajdywanie miejskości. Polska kwestia miejska z perspektywy długiego trwania [Rethinking Urbanity. The Polish Urban Question from a Longitudinal Perspective ] (2016), The European Capital of Culture 2016 effect: how the ECOC competition changed Polish cities (2020), Ruchy miejskie w Polsce [Urban Movements in Poland] (2020), European Cities in the Process of Constructing and Transmitting European Cultural Heritage (2022).

Cultural animator, fundraiser, publisher, and organizer of cultural events in the fields of visual arts and cultural promotion.

President of the Board of the Foundation for Visual Arts, co-creator, and long-time director of the Krakow Photomonth Festival. A scholarship recipient of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, as well as a member of the Council of Non-Governmental Organizations at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

He is the coordinator of long-term projects involving the cataloging, digitization, and promotion of the work of renowned Polish artists (including Zofia Rydet, Wojciech Plewiński, Zygmunt Rytka, and Władysław Hasior). An academic lecturer affiliated with the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and Collegium Civitas in Warsaw.

Photo by Adrian Pallasch for KBF.

Program Committee