The BWA Contemporary art gallery

“SHOAL” by Aleka Polis is a series of group, camera-facing choreographic actions whose point of reference is formed by non-hierarchical social constructs – largely disregarded by humans yet functioning successfully in non-human nature. The project examines the dynamics of group relations, processes of the formation and deformation of hierarchies, reciprocal interactions between individuals, and modes of collective functioning. “Shoal” simultaneously constitutes a form of socio-affective archaeology oriented toward past and future social relations and organizational structures.

The initial iterations of “Shoal” were dedicated to social dysfunctions – among the connecting factors shared by the participants were war trauma, mental illness, and intellectual disabilities. Individuals professionally engaged with the dynamics of collectivity – dance and choreography – were also invited to take part. The presentation will be successively updated with the outcomes of meetings carried out in collaboration with cultural institutions from Katowice, Upper Silesia, and the Zagłębie region, as well as with informal artistic spaces and communities. Developed over the course of a year, the series of choreographic workshops will simultaneously involve diverse professional groups: economists, civil servants, politicians, representatives of the cultural sector and business, as well as artists and curators. Each several-hour session will be recorded by a camera positioned above the performing participants, documenting shared movement-based explorations which, in practical terms, will take the form of educational and therapeutic workshop sessions, while also serving as a point of departure for a collective happening.

Aleksandra Polisiewicz (aka Aleka Polis) is a visual artist working within the fields of (post-)critical and feminist art. An anarchist, activist, and experimenter, she employs video, digital photography, painting, animation, documentary film, as well as objects and manifestos in her practice. Her (post-)critical work opens up a space for reflection on the reconstruction of identity and subjectivity within spaces controlled by broadly understood power structures. She addresses issues related to exclusion and social inequality. Among her most significant works are “Bestiary of the Subconscious”, “Matrix”, “IBM Dedicated”, “Wartopia”, the protest series “Rosa Rotes”, “A Glitch in Spacetime”, and “Landscapes Before and After – Revolutionary”. She also works as a streetworker with people with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness, and is a certified art therapist.

The project co-initiates the AESTHETIC CONGRESS program – a year-long exhibition and performative initiative aimed at updating the formula of the art institution, realized through the engagement of diverse, mutually complementary artistic languages and tools, and with the participation of artists and curators. The primary point of reference, and simultaneously the point of departure, is BWA Katowice – an institution embedded in the very center of the city’s urban and social fabric as a tool of social engineering. The modernist pavilion, now a listed architectural monument, is contemporaneous with the emergence of the Polish wave of institutional critique. The necessity of its spatial and ideological redefinition becomes the starting point for a discourse on the meanings and dynamics of the art institution understood in a universal sense. For the duration of the project, the main exhibition space will be transformed into a year-long art laboratory — a series of exhibitions within the exhibition that will gradually accumulate and simultaneously evolve over the course of the display. Historical works will enter into dialogue with entirely new ones, forming a collective reflection.

curator Łukasz Trzciński
curatorial collaboration Jessica Kufa

opening: 6 p.m., March 2, 2026
exhibition: March 3–December 31, 2026