Intersections. Papercuts by Anna Wencel

Anna Wencel has taught Jewish history and culture at the Galicia Jewish Museum since 2008. This show is the other side of her work: dozens of paper cutouts in which Jewish motifs run into Polish and Ukrainian folk traditions. One room on ul. Dajwór in Kazimierz, Krakow’s old Jewish quarter, until 31 December 2026.

Galicia Jewish Museum on the exhibition (the museum’s own English text):

What can be depicted by a papercut? Symbols, ornaments, and floral motifs are the most popular types of patterns. But can a papercut say something about more complex issues? About presence and absence, heritage and history, tradition and memory? Anna Wencel, the author of the works presented in a new temporary exhibition at the Galicia Jewish Museum, attempts to answer this question.

Intersections is an exhibition featuring dozens of original papercuts in the Galicia Jewish Museum’s Koret Gallery. The exhibition’s title reflects the location of Anna Wencel’s work at the crossroads of various cultures, traditions as well as in modernity, art and handicrafts. It also refers to the author’s professional life: the intersecting roles of an artist, a craftswoman, and an educator.

The exhibition subtly combines artistic and educational dimensions, serving as a canvas for stories about papercutting, symbols, and their diverse meanings. It also presents the practical side of making papercuts - from sketches and designs, through cutting tools, to the final result.

What to expect

The show fills a single room, the temporary exhibition space the museum calls the Koret Gallery. Next to the finished pieces you see the workshop behind them: sketches, designs and the tools the artist cuts with. The museum’s festival programme promised motifs you would not expect in folk paper art: street grids, buildings, bridges, forests and rivers, alongside intricate ornament, near-realistic scenes and abstract compositions.

This is a staff member showing her own work in her own museum. Wencel is a senior exhibitions and education specialist on the museum’s team, and she makes papercuts alongside her work as an educator and co-curator of exhibitions on Jewish history. The museum presents the pieces as contemporary art, not as reconstructions of old Jewish papercuts. The project is co-financed by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Krakow.

The show opened on 2 July 2026 at 17:00 as part of the museum’s programme around the 35th Jewish Culture Festival, when the artist also ran workshops and an open studio session in the gallery. Since then the museum has held an artist’s tour (12 July) and curator-led tours in Polish and English, the most recent in English on 11 September. A family workshop with the artist followed on 13 September and a tour in Ukrainian on 14 September. All were free, with limited places and a ticket downloaded from the website. New dates appear on the museum’s events page , so far every few weeks.

Context

Papercutting was widespread among the Jews of Poland and Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The cutouts decorated marriage contracts (ketubbot), the mizrah, a wall plaque marking the direction of prayer in a home, and festive ornaments. By the mid-20th century the craft had almost vanished. Polish folk papercuts (wycinanki) flourished from the mid-19th century and vary by region: those from Kurpie tend to be a single colour, those from Łowicz are multicoloured. Ukrainian vytynanky spread across the countryside in the 19th century.

Wencel studied Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. At the Galicia Jewish Museum she co-created, among others, “The Girl from the Diary. In Search of Rywka from the Łódź Ghetto” (2017) and “HerStories” (2023). In 2024 she showed her papercuts in Płońsk, north-west of Warsaw, in an exhibition titled “(Nie)tradycyjna, (nie)żydowska” ("(Non)traditional, (non)Jewish"). She said then that she looks at Jewish culture with admiration, but from the outside and from a non-religious point of view.

Tickets and time

There is no separate exhibition ticket. The price list has only general admission: 35 PLN, 25 PLN for seniors and students, 55 PLN for a family; children aged 6 and under go free. The museum does not say in so many words that admission covers the temporary show. That is our reading, backed by the festival programme, which listed the artist’s open session in the gallery as entry “with a Galicia Jewish Museum ticket”. The museum lists no free-admission day. It honours ICOM cards, the Krakow Tourist Card and Hop On Hop Off tickets.

Tickets bought online carry no date or time slot and stay valid until the end of the year printed on them. The museum is open every day, 10:00-18:00 (10 AM-6 PM), except on Yom Kippur and at Christmas. Holiday hours are announced separately (Easter 2026 was 12:00-18:00), so check the website before a visit in the second half of December. The building has no stairs.

Allow 30 minutes for this show, more if you want to compare the sketches with the finished pieces. Add the permanent exhibition “Traces of Memory” and plan on an hour and a half to two hours.

English on site: the museum states that the exhibition is presented in Polish and English.

Best for people who cut, sew or embroider themselves, for teachers looking for a way into Jewish symbols, and for families. Papercuts are an easier way in for a child than the photographs of the permanent exhibition, and the museum has run family workshops around this show. Skip it if you want historic papercuts from a museum collection - these are contemporary works by one artist.

Events

• 03-04.10.2026 - Senior Weekend with Culture (Weekend Seniora z Kulturą): visitors aged 60 and over pay 10 PLN for a ticket - details
• 04.10.2026, 11:00 - tour of the exhibition led by the artist, part of the Senior Weekend - details
• 04.10.2026, 14:00 - 2nd Dajwór Street Festival: tour of the exhibition led by Anna Wencel. On that day (11:00-16:00) the museum announces free admission only to the exhibition “KEF to zabawa!” and does not say whether the tour needs a ticket - details (in Polish)
• 04.10.2026, 15:00 - 2nd Dajwór Street Festival: workshop “Papercuts from Recycled Materials” (Wycinanki z recyklingu) with Anna Wencel, for participants aged 7 and over - details (in Polish)
• 12.10.2026, 17:00 - tour in Ukrainian led by Viktoriia Mudrytska; free entry, limited places, a free ticket must be downloaded from the museum’s website - details (in English and Ukrainian)
• 26.10.2026, 17:00 - curator’s tour in Polish led by Jagoda Wójcicka; free entry, limited places, a free ticket must be downloaded from the museum’s website - details

See also

• Galicia Jewish Museum - the permanent exhibition “Traces of Memory”, photographs from southern Poland worth the trip even without the papercuts.
• Krakow Bobbin Lace - A Living Heritage - another handicraft shown as a living practice rather than a relic, at the Krzysztofory Palace until 25 October.
• Old Synagogue - five minutes’ walk away: Judaica in the oldest surviving synagogue in Poland, ritual objects whose symbols recur in Jewish papercuts.

Tickets, opening hours, and current details are on the Galicia Jewish Museum website .

Museum profile: Galicia Jewish Museum .