Our Universities
“Our universities” is an art and research project conducted as part of the multi-year programme “University of Warsaw 2016-2025” in the University of Warsaw Ochota Campus from January to June 2017. The main theme of the activities was a reflection on the university as a whole, both imagined and existing, namely the Ochota Campus.
The research conducted to date at the Campus, as well as the many-year experience of studying and working at the University of Warsaw demonstrate that the perspective of thinking about the university as a common good, reaching beyond the identities of the individual departments is quite rare. Based on the results of previous research, the analysis of its spatial specifics and taking into account the plans of its future use, the project envisaged the conduct of creative research in all of the university buildings on the Ochota Campus, i.e. in five locations. People whom our team met in the buildings of the Biology, Geology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics and IT Departments were invited to take part in two activities addressing the issue of the Campus itself and the university in general.
Find a place for words
Every participant could choose from a few dozen citations those that made special sense to him or her and then he or she pinned them on the Campus map. The citations used were authored by scientists, thinkers, artists as well as industrial moguls, bankers, the clergy and politicians. They concerned science, its meaning, relations with other people, approaches to the reality, emotional and rational choices, life and work priorities, the essence of creativity, art, morality, education, self-awareness, etc. Large-format maps were filled with citations over the time of a few hours, thus creating a new, inspiring map of the Campus filled with emotions and ideas.
Design your university
The objective of this event was to expand the perspective, to move from personal experience related to the Ochota Campus to the idea of the university as a whole. Students and employees of five Departments were invited to express their idea of the perfect university in visual form. Everyone was given a white, cardboard cube that he or she could shape using manual methods into a personal form manifesting the idea of a dream university. The exhibition that ensued also featured personal commentaries of the authors of the works created.
The opinions voiced and created works returned to the Ochota Campus in the form of a mobile exhibition that travelled from Department to Department at the Campus.
Activities: Janusz Byszewski, Zofia Dworakowska, Joanna Kocemba, Jan Parczewski, Maria Parczewska
Photography and layout: Zbyszek Gozdecki
Project authors and exhibition curators: Janusz Byszewski, Zofia Dworakowska, Maria Parczewska
