EASTTOPICS

Stella Koleszár and Eszter Metzing at Vajda Lajos Studio

Artists: Stella Koleszár and Eszter Metzing Title: I SURFACED FROM A DEEP, SWAMPY SLEEP Curator: Júlia Salamon Venue: Vajda Lajos Studio, Szentendre Photos: Balázs Deim Sound installation: Rozi Mákó In their exhibition at the basement gallery of the Vajda Lajos Studio in Szentendre (Hungary), lutum (Stella Koleszár and Eszter Metzing) continue their ongoing artistic research …

Repair as Practice: Notes from the Unschool of Curating

Jelena Sofronijevic reflects on their experience of the framework of the eight Unschool of Curating, held in Timișoara and Cluj, Romania, between 19 – 26 June, 2026, led by Antonia Alampi (Spore Initiative) and organised by Art Encounters Foundation and Cluj Cultural Centre. καὶ τί δὲν κάνατε γιὰ νὰ μὲ θάψετε / ὅμως ξεχάσατε πὼς …

Samuel Kłoda at UFO Art Gallery

Title: Creak, Crash and Crow Artist: Samuel Kłoda Venue: UFO Art Gallery Curator: Michalina Sablik A bird hanging on a wire. A skull concealed within a still-life composition. Flies circling over a rotting bouquet. Spilled candles, masks, ashtrays, clocks, and flowers decomposing in a vase. Sticky traps for the gaze: individual symbols that begin to …

Mia Akrap at Trotoar Gallery

Artist: Mia Akrap Title: Stronger Than Bone Venue: Trotoar Gallery, Zagreb Curator: Gabriella Rebello Kolandra Photos: Damir Žižić Mia Akrap (Požega, 1995) draws on her own life as her primary material. The works presented here are new, produced for her first solo show at Trotoar Gallery, and engage with questions of relationality, trauma, and autobiography. …

Interview with Antonia Alampi

This interview took place within the framework of the Unschool of Curating, held in Timișoara and Cluj, Romania, between 19 – 26 June, 2026, organized by Art Encounters Foundation and Cluj Cultural Center. This program, now in its 8th edition, is developed collaboratively by the two organizations to strengthen curatorial networks in Romania and internationally. …

An interview with Luca Cserhalmi, curator of the Hungarian Pavilion

An interview with Luca Cserhalmi, curator of the Hungarian Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, on Pneuma Cosmic, slowness as resistance, the crisis of scientific worldviews, and the possibility of building intuitive relationships with the world through art. If you had to distill your pavilion into a single idea, what would it be—and what does …

Interview with Ewa Chomicka and Jolanta Woszczenko, curators of the Polish Pavilion

At the 61st Venice Biennale, the Polish Pavilion’s Liquid Tongues explores alternative forms of communication, collective listening, and coexistence across human and more-than-human worlds. In conversation with curators Ewa Chomicka and Jolanta Woszczenko, we discussed Deaf culture, underwater communication, geopolitical realities, and the political potential of attentiveness itself. Moving between activism and poetic immersion, the …

Interview with Adelina Luft, curator of the Moldova Pavilion

Adelina Luft sees the first-ever Moldova Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale not simply as a national debut, but as a political and emotional act of resistance. In conversation with us, the curator reflects on Pavel Brăila’s On the Thousand and Second Night—an installation staged inside Venice’s Santa Veneranda chapel that confronts war, territorial violence, …

An Interview with Natalia Sielewicz, curator of the Estonian Pavilion

The Easttopics team spoke with Natalia Sielewicz, curator of the Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, featuring artist Merike Estna. The interview touches on the politics of waiting as an artistic form, the relationship between care and painting, the contradictions of Eastern European identity, and what it means to make art amid ongoing geopolitical and …

An Interview with Peter Sit, curator of the Czech and Slovak Pavilion

“The mole is no longer a figure of childhood imagination, but an instrument of invisible soft power” — this year’s project at the Czechoslovak Pavilion interprets silence not as passivity, but as a form of political resistance. According to the artists, the Biennale is not only about representation, but also about negotiating how art can …

An Interview with Małgorzata Ludwisiak, curator of the Albanian Pavilion

This interview with the Albanian Pavilion’s curator, Małgorzata Ludwisiak, explores A Place in the Sun through questions of cultural perception, the notion of the “unknown,” and the mechanisms of the exoticizing gaze, while also reflecting on broader geopolitical and artistic contexts. If you had to distill your pavilion into a single idea, what would it …

Laura Põld at Kahan Art Space

Artist: Laura Põld Title: Beautiful Pulsating Web Curator: Lilian Hiob-Küttis Venue: Kahan Art Space, Vienna Photos: Manuel Carreon Lopez / Kunstdokumentation In her new textile and ceramic works at the Eva Kahan Foundation, Laura Põld continues her longstanding exploration of alternative modes of knowing. Moving beyond the dominant assumption that thought begins and ends with …

An Interview with Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Curator of the Slovenian Pavilion

As the curator of the Slovenian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez approaches the exhibition not as a stage for representation, but as a space for resonance, care, and critical reflection. Through Soundtrack for an Invisible House by Nonument Group, she explores forgotten histories, fragile architectures, and the persistent search for dignity amid the …

An Interview with Branko Franceschi, curator of the Croatian Pavilion

Dubravka Lošić’s presentation at the Venice Biennale is more than just another national pavilion—it is a concentrated reflection on how beauty, trauma, and cultural position intersect. Her installation Compelled by Fright and Beauty reveals the tensions beneath the Mediterranean idyll, while the curatorial perspective probes how Central and Eastern European experience is read within the …

Group show at GHMP

Artists: Tereza Bartůňková, Veronika Homolová, Hedvika Hlaváčková, Vojtěch Hrubant, Eva Koťátková, Matouš Lipus, Eva Palčič, Klára Samcová, Dominik Styk Title: Labyrinth: Wandering Within Curator: Karla Dvořák Hlaváčková Venue: GHMP, Prague Photos: Jan Kolsky The labyrinth functions as a metaphor for human thought and the journey of life. It symbolises wandering, courage, transformation and the burden …