Magdalena Franczak: Love letters only

This is the final week. Until Sunday 27 September 2026, Labirynt Gallery’s second space at Grodzka 3, in Lublin’s Old Town, shows not a finished exhibition but Magdalena Franczak’s working studio, midway through a project about memory and forgetting. Entry is free, Tuesday to Sunday from 15:00 to 19:00.

Labirynt Gallery on the exhibition (our translation of the gallery’s Polish text; the gallery publishes no English version of this page):

This time we are not inviting you to a finished exhibition, but to a place where an exhibition is only just coming into being. For a dozen or so days Galeria Labirynt 2 will turn into Magdalena Franczak’s studio, and the public will be able to step into the very middle of the process of making the exhibition.

“Love letters only” is part of the project “Notatki z zapominania” (Notes from Forgetting). Memory does not work like an archive: something stays, something vanishes, and some things come back in an entirely different form, and that is exactly what we will be looking at.

[…]

On 18 September the exhibition-in-progress will open. It is also a kind of introduction to Magdalena Franczak’s exhibition, which will be shown at Galeria Labirynt in February 2027.

What to expect

Do not expect a finished display. The gallery gives the run as 4 to 27 September, but the part open for viewing, which it calls an “exhibition in progress”, only opened on 18 September. Before that the room served as the artist’s studio, and the public came in for two workshop sessions, on 4 and 14 September.

Those sessions explain what you will see. The gallery announced that the notes and forms made during the workshops would become part of the exhibition. The sessions were set up around how the body stores emotion, what we dream when we cannot remember the day before, and what we would rather forget. No list of works has been published.

Think of the visit as a preview. The gallery has announced a full Magdalena Franczak exhibition for February 2027. Seeing the halfway stage now means you can compare it with the finished show next winter - an unusual chance to see one exhibition at two points in its life.

Labirynt 2 is a small space in an Old Town tenement; the door is inside the building’s gateway, on the left. The gallery also has exhibition space on a lower level, reached by very steep, narrow stairs with only 160 cm of headroom. It does not say whether this show extends downstairs.

Context

Magdalena Franczak, born in Puławy in 1978 according to the international Secondary Archive, is a visual artist working with photography, texts made to be listened to, and sculptural forms placed in public space. She created the Nomadic Studio, a series of artistic actions in public space. In 2023 she was part of the collective behind the Polish pavilion at the Prague Quadrennial of performance design and space.

She has shown at Labirynt before: at the turn of 2021 and 2022 she took part in the third edition of the gallery’s “Powiększenie” (Enlargement) series for Lublin artists, at the Labirynt Plaza space, with Ewa Zarzycka and Paweł Korbus. That show was about art and money.

“Notes from Forgetting” is a year-long project funded by a scholarship from Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage. It began with research meetings, among them one on 20 March 2026 at the Museum of Housing Estates in Lublin and one on 14 April at the Krytyka Polityczna community room in Cieszyn. Participants were asked to bring a small object tied to an important person or moment.

Tickets and time

Admission is free. There is no ticket for this show and the gallery mentions no booking; Labirynt 2 does not even have a ticket desk.

Final week - the last day is Sunday 27 September. The exhibition is open Tuesday to Sunday from 15:00 to 19:00 (3 PM to 7 PM) and closed on Monday. After Sunday the next chance to see the artist’s work at Labirynt is February 2027.

Allow 20-30 minutes. That is our estimate, based on the size of the tenement’s ground floor; if the show also uses the lower level (the gallery does not confirm it), add a few minutes. With more time, pair it with the collection show at Labirynt’s main building, Popiełuszki 5, which opens at 12:00, is also free and also closes on 27 September. Do the main building first, then walk the 20-25 minutes east to the Old Town for 15:00.

English on site: no. The gallery lists the exhibition’s language as Polish, publishes no English version of the page and announces no English tours or audio guide. The workshops that fed into the show were held in Polish, so come for the process rather than the reading.

Access: the entrance is not wheelchair accessible. A 25 cm step leads to the door, which has a threshold, is 85 cm wide and heavy to open. There is no toilet. Cars may not enter the Old Town after 12:00; the nearest disabled parking bay is on plac Łokietka, opposite the Town Hall. Public transport stops at Brama Krakowska 01, 02 and 04 on Królewska street, by the Kraków Gate.

Groups can request a curator-led tour through the form on the exhibition page. If you need Polish Sign Language or Ukrainian interpretation, write in advance to Wioletta Stępniak (wioletta.stepniak@labirynt.com ); the gallery says it will try to arrange it. At Labirynt 2 the gallery also offers tours in Polish Sign Language and tours with audio description and tactile materials, booked in advance by email at galeria@labirynt.com .

Who it is for: anyone curious about how an exhibition is made, workshop participants who want to see what became of their notes, and anyone planning to catch Franczak’s full show in February. Skip it if you want a finished display with captions - by design, this is not one.

What the press says

No English-language coverage was found. The Polish reporting, in our words:

Radio Centrum (13 March 2026, Mikołaj Borowiec): a preview of the project’s March research meeting at the Museum of Housing Estates; the Lublin student radio station reports that the year’s work is meant to result in a textile sculpture, an exhibition and an artist’s book - Radio Centrum preview (Polish-language source).

No review or report on the exhibition itself was found, as of 23 September 2026.

Updates

• 2026-09-23 - the exhibition page and the gallery’s events calendar checked: dates unchanged, the last day is 27 September 2026. Both workshop sessions (4 and 14 September) and the opening of the exhibition in progress (18 September) have already taken place; the gallery announces no further events for this show in its final week.

See also

• Labirynt Gallery - the institution’s profile: the main building at Popiełuszki 5, the neo-avant-garde collection, Wednesday quiet hours and how to get there.
• My Hands Are Clean and My Floor Is Green - Labirynt’s other show closing on 27 September, nearly a hundred works from the gallery’s collection, free; its curator, Paweł Korbus, exhibited alongside Franczak in 2021.
• Post-Competition Exhibition of the Prof. Józef Mroszczak International Typography Triennial - another Old Town show in its last days, at Dom Słów until 30 September 2026.
• Museum of Housing Estates - host of one of the first research meetings of “Notes from Forgetting”, in March 2026.

Opening hours, access details and current information are available on the Labirynt Gallery’s exhibition page (in Polish).

Museum profile: Labirynt Gallery .