Miesiąc: marzec 2026

Graphics: Klaudia Borawiak

“Reading Workshops in Prisons” is a reading development programme implemented by Fundacja Dom Kultury in 2026 in five prisons in the Warsaw district. As part of the project, we will carry out cycles of workshops based on working with literature related to the Warsaw Uprising — memoirs, non-fiction and historical studies.

The project will involve over 100 incarcerated men in:
– Warsaw-Białołęka Remand Prison,
– Warsaw-Grochów Remand Prison,
– Warsaw-Służewiec Remand Prison,
– Radom Remand Prison,
– Grójec Remand Prison.

In each facility, a cycle of 6 sessions will be delivered.

The project responds to concrete needs: limited access to books, lack of reading habits, and difficulties in working with texts. Literature becomes a working tool here — a starting point for discussion, analysis and structuring knowledge.

The Warsaw Uprising is a topic that is strongly present in prisons and evokes intense emotions. Participants often feel a strong connection to it, but this is not always supported by structured historical knowledge. In many cases, their understanding is based on informal narratives, simplified accounts or popular legends rather than formal education or engagement with primary sources.

For this reason, we work directly with texts: we read, analyse, compare different perspectives and organise facts. The workshops are led by experienced educators who provide historical context and support participants in working with texts.

The project is addressed to men, as they most frequently identify the Warsaw Uprising as a subject that genuinely interests them.

As part of the programme, we deliver historical lectures, discussions of books, authors and literary genres, analysis of selected text excerpts (including Białoszewski, Bratny, Kamiński, Davies), workshops focused on reading comprehension and working with texts, creative writing workshops (short forms inspired by memoirs), as well as performative readings and sessions combining text with Uprising songs.

The workshops are led by:
– Piotr Prasuła (Museum of Literature),
– Marcin Miros (Warsaw Uprising Museum),
– Jerzy S. Majewski (miastarytm.pl),
– Dr Paulina Potasińska (Polish Language Foundation),
– Adrian Drapich(National Library),
– Kinga Kosik-Burzyńska (Klub Komediowy Theatre).

The project continues our long-term work in prisons. Each group participates in a full cycle of sessions, which allows for a gradual introduction to reading, building core text-based competencies and developing knowledge in a structured way. This model enables participants to move from first contact with a text, through understanding, to their own interpretation.

The project is funded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage under the “Reading Promotion” programme.

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Subsidized with funds from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Fund for Promotion of Culture – state purpose fund

Honorary patronage of the project titled “Inclusive Contemporary Music – Concerts in Prison: Minister of Culture and National Heritage

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Honorary patronage of the Honorary patronage of the project titled “Inclusive Contemporary Music – Concerts in Prison: Director General of the Prison Service

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Inclusive Contemporary Music – Concerts in Prison

We are launching a new project titled “Inclusive Contemporary Music – Concerts in Prison”, which has received funding from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage under the Accessible Culture programme, financed from the Culture Promotion Fund.

For the first time, the music of the distinguished American composer Morton Feldman will be performed in a prison setting. As part of the project, we will organize two four-hour concerts of the piece Crippled Symmetry (1983) at the Warsaw-Grochów Remand Prison. The event will be attended by over 200 incarcerated participants—women on one day and men on the other.

The concert will be performed by a trio consisting of Ewa Liebchen (flutes), Emilia Karolina Sitarz (keyboards), and Magdalena Kordylasińska-Pękala (percussion)—musicians long associated with the contemporary music scene and with the performance of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire.

Before the concert begins, we will meet with the participants for a short introduction. We will talk about Feldman’s music, its notation, and ways of listening to it. Participants will also be encouraged to create graphic scores—visual representations of their impressions and observations while listening to the music.

The project brings an artistic event to a place where contemporary music concerts do not normally take place. A prison is a demanding environment—with its own acoustics and the everyday sounds of institutional life—and the audience typically has little or no contact with this type of music. For many participants, this will be their first encounter with contemporary music performed live.

Selected fragments of the concerts will be recorded and made available online, and will also be shared through the prison’s internal radio system so they can be replayed for incarcerated listeners.

The project is implemented in cooperation with the Polish Prison Service, in particular with the Warsaw-Grochów Remand Prison and the District Inspectorate of the Prison Service in Warsaw.

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The 2026 project was co-funded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund.