Polish pavilion praised at London Design Biennale

Entitled “A Matter of Things,” the Polish pavilion aims to showcase the last 100 years in Poland through objects and the emotions they evoke, in line with the event’s motto “Emotional States.”

According to Krzysztof Olendzki, director of the Warsaw-based Adam Mickiewicz Institute, a state-funded cultural institution that promotes Poland and Polish culture abroad, the idea is “to explain to the world ... the daily lives of Poles and the history of our country after it regained independence in 1918 and in the period following World War II.”

Exhibits on show at the Polish pavilion include a telephone that is a reference to the martial law period in Poland in the early 1980s when telephone conversations, whether from public or private phones, were intercepted.

There is also a toilet paper "necklace" illustrating the acute shortages of the 1980s when getting a few rolls of toilet paper was a cause for celebration and when people carrying such rolls on a loop of string was a common sight.

Visitors can also see a replica of the table that was used during the Round Table talks in the spring of 1989 between Poland's communist regime and the Solidarity freedom movement, which gave the impetus for the collapse of communism in the country.

Egypt, the United States and Latvia have won medals at the London Design Biennale, while China claimed the other of the event’s two honourable mentions.

Over 40 countries are taking part in the Biennale.

(mk/gs)