The Debrief

In this mid-August round-up from The Debrief, host John Beauchamp speaks to TFN's social media editor Monica Zielinski about the top stories making the rounds this week.

• Gdynia up on the Baltic coast is the happiest place to live, according to a new poll
• Techies in Warsaw have printed out a 3D skull for a baby with a serious condition down in Silesia...

More news of course - including the latest on the Odra river - at thefirstnews.com! Get in touch with us by writing to [email protected].

A new exhibition on Witkacy at the National Museum in Warsaw provides a new perspective on the artist and his work.

This exhibition embeds [his work] in 20th century and contemporary theoretical contexts, the museum writes.

In the studio for this episode, John Beauchamp speaks to Paweł Polit, the co-curator of the exhibition – Witkacy. Seismograph of the Acceleration Age.

‘He advocated the notion of art which would stimulate receivers to enter more sophisticated spiritual domains,’ says Polit, adding that ‘the reception of art is an experience unto itself.’

More on the exhibition can be found here.

The Carnaval aims to get a party going on the streets of Lublin, which becomes a hub for performers, buskers and so-called ‘ludic artists’ of all kinds…

Iwona Kornet, current producer of the Carnaval festival, and Rafał Sadownik, the event’s founder and former director talk to John Beauchamp on the evolution of what we call the ‘circus’ and how urban space create provides an ideal dimension for various trypes of performance (including super-long slack lines).

More on the festival here.

In this episode of The Debrief we explore the powerful figure of Bona Sforza, Queen of Poland back in the 16th century, and whether she really was key in bringing certain vegetables to Poland all those centuries ago…

John Beauchamp is joined by possibly the world’s greatest Bona Sforza expert, Dr. Darius Güttner from the University of Melbourne, to find out more about the progressive wife of Zygmunt Stary, one of the last Jagiellonian kings.

In this episode of The Debrief, all you’ve ever wanted to know about ancient Egyptian mummies, as John Beauchamp is joined in the studio with Dr. Wojciech Ejsmond, one of the lead researchers at the Warsaw Mummy Project.

Just a warning in advance, that this episode has as many mummyfyingly bad gags as you can shake a stick at...

The Wola branch of the Museum of Warsaw has put on a show which highlights the life and times of one of the capital’s most well-known – yet most-forgotten – writers and artists, Miron Białoszewski.

Host John Beauchamp visits the exhibition and speaks with curators Agnieszka Karpowicz and Magdalena Staroszczyk.

More information on the exhibition can be found here.

In this episode of The Debrief, we're down in Kraków to check out the latest exhibition at the Museum of Photography.

Curator Dominik Kuryłek takes John Beauchamp around the exhibition at the MuFo gallery on Rakowicka Street in Kraków.

The exhibition takes in the years 1963-2020 and shows how British society has developed during that time - from the roaring 60s through to the Thatcher years and - most recently - the UK in time of lockdown.

The Faculty of Civil Engineering at the University of Technology in Kraków is now offering studies in Ukrainian for engineers.

Host John Beauchamp speaks to the Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Andrzej Szarata, about the course and what the thinking is behind opening such a programme.

More information on civil engineering studies in Ukrainian can be found here.

With thousands of Ukrainians in Poland’s capital Warsaw, new ways are being found to help them.

One such organisation providing support is HumanDoc, which has just opened a new legal and professional centre in the heart of downtown Warsaw for Ukrainians planning to stay longer in Poland.

The HumanDoc Foundation now provides a legal service at a newly opened office in the Plac Unii shopping centre, a stone’s throw from the Ukrainian embassy in Warsaw.

Host John Beauchamp gets all the details from HumanDoc’s Małgorzata Piłacińska.

In this episode of The Debrief, the university library up in the Baltic city of Gdańsk is hosting an exhibition which tells of the city’s links with English playwright William Shakespeare.

Host John Beauchamp speaks to Justyna Limon, wife of the late Professor and Shakespeare scholar Jerzy Limon, whose items are among those on display.

More information on the Shakespeare Theatre in Gdańsk may be found here.