Maryna Tomaszewska’s “WAW: WOMEN’S CITY, WOMEN’ STREETS” exhibition invites you to one of these alleys. Within the context of the History Meeting House (Dom Spotkań z Historią, known as DSH), her installation reverses the invisibility of women in public spaces through the presentation of feminist statistics, gender-related textile maps, and in-depth biographies of invisible female matrons, most of which can be found in less central districts such as Białołęka or Targówek.
The exhibition highlights a huge asymmetry in the historical and cultural narrative of the capital’s gender representation in public spaces, but does not leave us without hope. An alley is both an end and a beginning – it is hitting a wall, but also an opening to reflect on what a more feminized public space would look like. What can women, with their unique perspectives and experiences, bring to urban planning?
“Every other person living in Warsaw is a woman, or a non-binary person, but this does not translate into the city’s urban planning or naming of streets. How many of them bear women’s names? We pass street signs, pronounce street names, type out addresses dozens of times a day, most often not knowing what they mean or who the significant figures they commemorate are. There are 5,800 streets and squares in Warsaw, of which about twenty percent are named after people. More than 1,300 are named after men. Only about 158 are named after women. They are often dead-ends or alleys,” explains exhibition curator Joanna Warsza.
The “WAW” exhibition and its accompanying art book by Maryna Tomaszewska reverses the invisibility of women in public spaces through the presentation of feminist statistics, gender-related textile maps, and in-depth biographies of invisible female matrons. The exhibition highlights a huge asymmetry in the historical and cultural narrative of the capital’s gender representation in public spaces. What can women and non-binary people, with their unique perspectives and experiences, bring to urban planning? What would a feminized and pluralistic public space look like? And how can this marginalization spell be broken?,” adds Warsza.
This so-called “information gap” is described by Caroline Criado Perez in her book “Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.” The author believes that the way the narrative is built is fundamental to the perceptions, structure and social and cultural mechanisms in which we function on a daily basis – whether it be In Warsaw, Hamburg or Kyiv. Her book, as well as the exhibition, poses the question of how to think and create cities so that they are for everyone.
A 2009 resolution of the Warsaw City Council regarding the guidelines for street nomenclature reads: “the use of names derived from proper names, common or commemorative, upholding a balance between them, however the dominance of names of a commemorative nature should be avoided if possible.” The exhibition and accompanying book are an attempt to break the spell of the marginalization of women in public spaces.
The exhibition, curated by Joanna Warsza, will be open to the public from September 19th, 2025 to February 22nd, at the History Meeting House (DSH) at 20 Karowa St. in Warsaw. In the fall, the art book “WAW” by Maryna Tomaszewska, published by the History Meeting House, will be available for purchase at the DSH Bookstore. Martyna Wędzicka-Obuchowicz is behind the book’s unique graphic design. She is also the creator of the exhibition’s visual identity.
The book’s premiere will take place on October 18th as part of the 2025 Heroines Festival (Festiwal Bohaterek). The publication is co-financed by an art grant from the City of Warsaw.
Stadtkuratorin Hamburg is a partner of the exhibition. This History Meeting House exhibition is being presented within the frame of Warsaw Gallery Weekend as part of the WGW+ section.
🔹Maryna Tomaszewska is an interdisciplinary artist, who creates in the realm of objects, installations, performances, and art books. She is editor-in-chief of 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑𝑦𝑘 𝑁𝑎𝑗𝑔𝑜𝑟𝑠𝑧y [The Worst Periodical]. Tomaszewska is a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she heads the Experimental Text Studio in the Media Art Department. Her work explores the themes of text as an artistic medium, death, mechanisms of power and feminism. She has participated in exhibitions at, among others, BWA Wrocław, BWA Zielona Góra, CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, MATCA in Cluj-Napoca, OOF Gallery in London, Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast, as well as the NY Art Book Fair and LA Art Book Fair. She has received scholarships from the City of Warsaw, Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the “Young Poland Program”. Tomaszewska’s art books are in the collections of such institutions as MoMA, SFMOMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
🔹Joanna Warsza is a City Curator of Hamburg, an editor, an essayist a mom. She is also the curator and co-curator of numerous exhibitions, urban projects and conferences such as the Georgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2013), the Polish Pavilion in Venice alongside Małgorzata Mirga-Tas and Wojtek Szymański (2022), the Radical Playgrounds at Gropius Bau in Berlin (2024), the 3rd and 4th Autostrada Biennale in Prizren, Kosovo (2021 & 2023), Public Art Munich (2018), and the 7th Berlin Biennale (2012). In 2014-2024, Warsza was the Program Director of the CuratorLab at Konstfack University of the Arts in Stockholm. She is the editor of over 15 publications. Her main interests center around political art, activism, performance, as well as decolonization theory in Eastern Europe and the effect of art in public spaces.
Wystawa Maryny Tomaszewskiej “WAW. MIASTO I ULICE KOBIET” / Maryna Tomaszewska’s Exhibition WAW: Women’s city and streets
Kuratorka / Curator: Joanna Warsza
Projekt identyfikacji wizualnej wystawy, projekt art booka i przewodnika rodzinnego/ Exhibition visual identity design, art book design and family guide: Martyna Wędzicka-Obuchowicz
Koordynacja projektu i produkcja wystawy / Project coordination and exhibition production: Beata Łyżwa-Sokół
Redakcja / Editor: Małgorzata Purzyńska
Tłumaczenie / Translation: Krzysztof Ścibiorski
Korekta / Proofreading: Anna Kaniewska (polski/Polish), Christopher Smith (angielski/English)
Montaż scenografii/ Exhibition installation : Mateusz Wierzbicki
Druk na ścianie /Wall print: Designyourwall, Paweł Tobiasz
Program wydarzeń/ Accompanying events: Sebastian Gawęda, Weronika Komorowska, Agata Kucharska
Opracowanie przewodnika rodzinnego/ Family guide: Magdalena Kreis (koncepcja i treść / concept and texts), Magda Szymańska (redakcja i korekta / editor and proofreading)
Promocja | PR team: Marianna Januszewicz, Maja Raczyńska, Marta Rogowska, Nadzieja Rudzka, Kaja Stępkowska
Exhibition Partner: Stadtkuratorin Hamburg
This History Meeting House exhibition is being presented within the frame of Warsaw Gallery Weekend as part of the WGW+ section.