In her narrative on Józef Szajna, Berlińska examines how the artist and director first called to life the Studio Theatre – an institution open to artistic experimentation – in the place of the “ordinary” Classical Theatre, and later had the Centre for Art – a modern, multi-disciplinary institution often compared to Paris’s Centre Pompidou – established. The author ventures beyond the space of an anniversary work and a historical compendium; presenting instead a journalistic narrative on Szajna and the Studio, woven from interviews with artists, critics, audience members, and participants in the cultural life of the 1970s Warsaw. With its title fine-tuned as A Behind- the-Scenes Portrait, Szajna, Szajnisko offers readers a close-up insight into that nonconforming, ever-questing artist.

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PARTICIPANTS: Agnieszka Berlińska, Professor Dariusz Kosiński, Wojciech Plewiński, and Anna Polony – will read excerpts from the book

MODERATOR: Agnieszka Szydłowska, Program 3 Polskiego Radia

Meeting in Polish.