RE:AKCJA ŁAŃCUCHOWA 2026 (Chain Reaction)

For five months the Zakopane district of ZPAP, the Association of Polish Artists and Designers, is showing work by its members and by unaffiliated artists on Krupówki, the town’s main street. Each month brings different artists: one in August, two at a time from September. The cycle runs from 8 August to 31 December 2026 in the café and exhibition space of the Tatra Museum’s main building at 10 Krupówki Street. The October instalment (8-31 October) is “Ślady ludzi” (“Traces of People”) by two Zakopane-born painters, Małgorzata Majerczyk and Sylwia Biernacik. The November one is “RE:JA” by Kinga Bednarz-Zabiegała and Joanna Strączek-Bojda, opening on 7 November. The museum publishes no English text on the cycle; the words below are our translation of its Polish description.

Tatra Museum on the exhibition:

This exhibition is the first instalment of the RE:AKCJA ŁAŃCUCHOWA 2026 cycle, run by the Zakopane District of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers in the space of the Tatra Museum.

What to expect

This is not one exhibition but a string of short, month-long shows. The museum keeps a single page for the whole cycle and adds each instalment to it. According to its announcement of 10 August 2026, the shows feature members of the Zakopane district of ZPAP as well as artists who do not belong to it. The instalments, as the museum lists them:

• August (8-31 August, closed): “Patrząc - akwarele o tematyce górskiej” (“Looking - watercolours of the mountains”) by Zofia Bolechowska - watercolour, pastel, watercolour pencil and acrylic, all painted outdoors in the mountains. The opening took place on 7 August.
• September (4-30 September, closed): “Splot spojrzeń” (“Interwoven Gazes”) - Ewa Bartosz-Mazuś, who works in textiles (tapestry, weaving in miniature, felt), and Zofia Szwajnos, a painter, sculptor and photographer whose pictures include high-altitude climbing.
• October (8-31 October): “Ślady ludzi” (“Traces of People”) - Małgorzata Majerczyk-Sieczka and Sylwia Biernacik. Majerczyk-Sieczka, a painter and printmaker trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, works mostly on large canvases in which a realistic figure stands against an abstract background. Biernacik graduated in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, now works mainly as a painter, and has chaired the Zakopane district of ZPAP since March 2023. The opening was announced for 8 October at 17:00.
• November: “RE:JA” - Kinga Bednarz-Zabiegała and Joanna Strączek-Bojda. The museum gave the title in its November programme, together with the opening on Saturday 7 November at 17:00 in the main building; it has not given a closing date.
• December: Kinga Gąsienica-Ciułacz and Zuzanna Dembiec.

The museum has not yet published the media of the November instalment, nor the title or media of the December one. On “Ślady ludzi” it says only who the artists are; the announcement does not tell you which works are on show. There can be a gap of a few days between shows (September’s opened four days after August’s closed, October’s eight days after September’s), so check the current dates on the cycle’s page before you go.

The scale is modest: one space, which the museum also uses for its “Spotkania przy kawie” (“Talks over coffee”) series. Allow 15-20 minutes per instalment - our estimate, as the museum gives no visiting time. No curator is named; the ZPAP district organises the cycle.

Context

ZPAP is an association of Polish visual artists, registered in Kraków in March 1911 and organised in regional districts, Zakopane among them. Four of the five artists of the first three instalments trained at Zakopane’s Antoni Kenar Secondary School of Fine Arts. The school is the successor to the woodcarving school opened by the Tatra Society in 1876 and has borne Kenar’s name since 1959. The fifth, Małgorzata Majerczyk-Sieczka, is a graduate of another Zakopane school, the Helena Modrzejewska Technical School of Art Weaving. So the cycle largely shows what graduates of that one school are making now, in the same year the museum marks the school’s 150 years with a separate exhibition at Villa Oksza.

Tickets and time

Do you need a ticket? The museum does not say. The main building’s price list names two temporary exhibitions, “Underground” and “Czarno-białe szaleństwo” (“Black-and-White Madness”), and does not mention RE:AKCJA ŁAŃCUCHOWA 2026 at all. The fact that the room is called a café and exhibition space does not by itself mean free entry; that is only our reading, so ask at the ticket desk.

Main building prices: permanent and temporary displays 34 PLN (reduced 17 PLN), permanent display only 26 PLN (reduced 13 PLN), “Underground” only 14 PLN (reduced 7 PLN). The weekly ticket to every open branch of the Tatra Museum costs 69 PLN (reduced 34 PLN), and holders of the Polish Large Family Card (Karta Dużej Rodziny) pay 10 PLN per person for the branch’s exhibitions. Residents of Zakopane, Nowy Targ and seven neighbouring municipalities pay 1 PLN. Free Thursday covers the permanent displays. Tickets are not sold online; entry is in order of arrival.

Hours: Wednesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00 (10 AM to 6 PM), last entry 17:15, closed on Monday and Tuesday. The museum publishes one timetable for the main building with no autumn variant; check the hours and prices page before you go.

Who it is for: worth a look if you want to see what Zakopane’s artists are making today rather than only their predecessors behind glass. It works best as an add-on to the main building’s permanent display or as a reason to drop in on an opening night. Do not plan a trip to Zakopane around a single monthly instalment: it is a quarter of an hour of looking.

English on site: the museum says nothing about English labels for the cycle.

Events

• 7 November 2026, 17:00 - opening of the November instalment, “RE:JA” by Kinga Bednarz-Zabiegała and Joanna Strączek-Bojda, main building, 10 Krupówki Street, free admission - the museum’s November programme .

Updates

• 2026-10-16 - the museum gave the title of the November instalment in its November programme: “RE:JA” by Kinga Bednarz-Zabiegała and Joanna Strączek-Bojda, opening on 7 November at 17:00. The cycle’s page so far lists only the artists’ names (source: the November programme ).
• 2026-10-07 - the museum added the October instalment to the cycle’s page: “Ślady ludzi” by Małgorzata Majerczyk and Sylwia Biernacik, from 8 to 31 October 2026. The September instalment, “Splot spojrzeń”, closed on 30 September (source: the cycle’s page ).

See also

• Tatra Museum profile - the permanent display in the same building: Podhale ethnography and history on the ground floor, Tatra nature upstairs, plus hours, prices and directions.
• “Underground - A World Wrested from Darkness” - the other temporary show in the main building, on caves and life without light, until 28 February 2027; this is the show the separate temporary ticket is for.
• “Our Legacy. 150 Years since the Founding of the Woodcarving School in Zakopane” - the history of the school attended by four of the five artists of the first three instalments, at the Villa Oksza Art Gallery.
• “Rysy” by Szymon Klejborowski - another present-day artist working inside the Tatra Museum, at Villa Koliba until 31 December 2026.

Museum profile: Tatra Museum in Zakopane .