WAWEL IS YOURS FESTIVAL
Artistic curator: W P Onak 

Wawel Royal Castle is one of Central Europe’s most important cultural institutions: a former royal seat, a national symbol, and a heritage site visited by more than 1.4 million people annually. Comparable in cultural stature to the Tower of London or New York’s Metropolitan Museum, Wawel is a cornerstone of Polish identity. The Wawel Is Yours Festival became one of its key contemporary milestones, transforming the entire castle complex into a platform for new artistic creation.

As Artistic Curator, I developed a residency program that invited leading contemporary artists to work directly with Wawel’s archives, collections, and architecture. The goal was to unlock the castle’s historical layers and connect them with today’s cultural languages. This was not a small peripheral event; it was a castle-wide initiative, promoted nationally and designed to reposition Wawel as a dynamic institution open to experimentation.

The residency featured three major voices:

Ania Orska, a celebrated jewelry designer known for her sculptural and sustainable approach, created new pieces inspired by medieval craftsmanship and historic objects discovered in the castle’s archives.

Joanna Hawrot, an internationally recognised fashion and textile designer, developed textile-based works and silhouettes shaped by royal garments, tapestries, and the ritualistic atmosphere of the castle’s interiors.

Alicja Smietana, a violinist and composer with an international career, created a new musical composition rooted in Wawel’s acoustics and mythology, opening the festival and setting its emotional tone.

The public program included workshops, artist talks, meetings, and performances across the castle grounds, activating spaces rarely used for contemporary events. Festival tickets sold out before the opening, reflecting the demand for a new dialogue between heritage and contemporary culture.

The Wawel Is Yours Festival redefined how a historic monument can function today. It proved that heritage sites can become living cultural laboratories, generating new art rather than preserving only the past. For international audiences, the festival stands as a model of how major cultural institutions can reinvent themselves by opening their history to contemporary creators.