U with Two Dots

This exhibition, translated and adapted from the museum’s Polish-language copy (the Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN Centre has no dedicated English version of this page), presents Katarzyna Minasowicz’s work on displacement and the slow process of making a strange place feel like home, told through the history of post-war Wrocław.

Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN Centre on the exhibition (our translation of the Centre’s Polish text; it publishes nothing about this exhibition in English):

Inspired by Katarzyna Minasowicz’s book “U z dwiema kropkami / U mit zwei Punkten”, the exhibition invites you on a journey through the experience of loss, of growing familiar, and of hope. It is a story rooted in the fate of post-war Wrocław and at the same time a universal one - about everyone who has ever had to start over, in an unfamiliar space, among unfamiliar sounds, scents and colours. It is a story about how, step by step, a sense of belonging gets built. How an ordinary place begins to smell like home.

What to expect

The exhibition is presented at Dom Słów; it also has an outdoor chapter on the pergola in the Saxon Garden, for which the museum gives conflicting dates - see below. The opening took place on 4 September 2026 at 6:00 PM at Dom Słów.

What hangs at Dom Słów are the original artworks from the picture book “U z dwiema kropkami / U mit zwei Punkten”. Minasowicz works by hand rather than on screen: cut paper collage over a grey ground, with a pencil line so light it almost disappears, and a paper cut-out figure leading the reader through. Print flattens that texture; the originals do not. The show is small and intimate, so allow 20 to 30 minutes.

The outdoor half is a different proposition. Curator Alina Januszczyk told Radio Lublin that on the Saxon Garden pergola the illustrations are combined with texts about migration, the feelings that come with leaving home, and statistics, which makes that part educational and civic, while Dom Słów shows only the originals. A warning about the outdoor dates: the Centre’s own calendar says the pergola display starts on 25 September, the Dom Słów venue page gives 24 August to 11 October 2026, and Radio Lublin described the pergola as already up on 31 August. If the park installation is the reason for your trip, ring +48 81 534 52 33 to confirm before you go.

The curators are Alina Januszczyk and Michalina Jachacz-Pasek, graphic design is by Michał Kaczkowski, and the show was mounted by courtesy of the author and the Widnokrąg publishing house.

Context

Katarzyna Minasowicz is a Polish illustrator and graphic designer who trained in architecture at Warsaw University of Technology and in industrial design at the Academy of Fine Arts, and who makes minimalist picture books in which image and text argue with each other. The book behind this exhibition was made on an artistic fellowship from the City of Wrocław and carries the honorary patronage of the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Wrocław; Widnokrąg published it in June 2025 in Polish and German editions, priced at 48 PLN.

The title is the key to the whole thing. “U with two dots” is the German Ü, a letter Polish does not use. After 1945 Wrocław was Breslau no longer: the German population left, Poles displaced from the east arrived, and both sides had to learn to read foreign lettering on streets they were told were now theirs. If you are visiting Poland and have never heard of that population exchange, this small show is a gentle way into it. The book took a graphic distinction in the Polish IBBY Section’s Book of the Year 2025, a nomination for the Dobre Strony publishing award, and earlier a place in the Unpublished Picturebook Showcase at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

The illustrations have travelled before: in October 2025 they were shown at the Rotacyjny Dom Kultury na Jazdowie in Warsaw . Lublin is the next stop and the first to add an outdoor chapter.

Tickets and time

• Admission is free. The Centre states “Wstęp: bezpłatny” for this show, and the Dom Słów visiting page confirms the general rule that temporary exhibitions are free during opening hours. No ticket, no timed booking.
• You do not need a separate ticket. The 30 PLN (20 PLN reduced) tickets apply to the guided tour of the permanent exhibition, the printing works and the underground-press display, which is a different visit at a fixed hour. Individual visitors join those tours at 11:00 and 15:00.
• Opening hours. The Centre gives a summer season (June to September) of Tuesday to Saturday, 9:00 to 17:00, and a winter season (October to May) of Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:00. The Dom Słów page footer, however, lists Monday to Friday only. Confirm by phone before a September Saturday visit.
• English on site: the Centre runs an English version of the Dom Słów site and sells an English-language guided tour of the permanent exhibition at 45 PLN (35 PLN reduced). For this exhibition specifically it publishes nothing in English, and it makes no statement about English captions or an audio guide. Assume the wall texts are Polish only; the images carry most of the meaning, which is the point of a picture book.
• How long. 20 to 30 minutes at Dom Słów. The pergola in the Saxon Garden is in a public park, open at any hour and free of any timetable.
• Who it is for, and who should skip it. Families with children from about six, picture-book readers, and anyone interested in Poland’s post-war Western Territories or in displacement as a subject. The blog Mały Pokój z Książkami warned of the book that its sparse narrative needs an adult alongside; the same holds here. If you want a large exhibition to fill an afternoon, this is not it - pair it with the Dom Słów permanent display or with the typography triennial in the same building.

Tickets, opening hours and current information are available on the Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN Centre’s website .

Events

• 7.09-31.12.2026 - “Warsztaty tymczasowe”, literary and art workshops for children inspired by the book and the exhibition, ages 6 and up, groups of up to 25, lasting 1 to 1.5 hours. Dates are arranged individually, Monday to Friday between 9:30 and 16:00; 20 PLN per person. Booking: alina.januszczyk@tnn.lublin.pl , +48 81 534 52 33. Details (Polish only).

What the press says

No English-language coverage of this exhibition exists. Two Polish reports do:

Polskie Radio Lublin (31.08.2026, BoS): the regional broadcaster previewed the show as a story about leaving what you know, and noted that the pergola half went up before the Dom Słów half - preview .

Polskie Radio Lublin (04.09.2026, BoS): an opening-day report in which curator Alina Januszczyk explains the split between the civic, text-heavy park display and the originals hanging at Dom Słów - report .

The book itself was reviewed a year earlier: Mała Czcionka (30.06.2025) was enthusiastic about the hand-made technique, while Mały Pokój z Książkami (27.08.2025, Agnieszka Dobrowolska) admired the illustrations but doubted the suggested reading age.

See also

• House of Words - Chamber of Printing - the venue itself: a working type-setting room, bindery and paper mill, the crafts a book like this comes out of.
• Mroszczak Typography Triennial: the award winners - the second free exhibition in the same building, but only until 30 September 2026; until then you can see both in one visit.
• Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN Centre - the parent institution and its permanent exhibition “Lublin. Memory of the Place”; a 95 PLN pass (67 PLN reduced) covers the Grodzka Gate, Dom Słów, the Lublin Underground Route and Fortuna Cellar for 30 days.

Museum profile: Brama Grodzka - Teatr NN Centre .