5th-30th June, Belfast

Starting on June 5th, as part of the Belfast Photo Festival, works by Polish artists Diana Lelonek, Anna Zagrodzka, Karol Szymkowiak, and Dyba and Adam Lach are on display. A series of exhibitions, events, and screenings exploring the changing landscape of Polish ecology and society are presented under the title ‘Metamorphosis’. The presentation of works in key locations across central Belfast is made possible thanks to the involvement of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. The events are part of the UK/Poland Season 2025 cultural programme.

The project is supported by Fotofestiwal Lodz.

Diana Lelonek’s exhibition Centre for Living Things opened on June 9, 2025, at Belfast City Hall. The artist, through her para-institution — an artistic activity emerging from fatigue with traditional institutions and positioned in opposition to them — explores the relationships between humans and other species. Her work offers a critical response to overproduction, limitless growth, and our treatment of the environment. Lelonek uses photography, living matter, and found objects to create interdisciplinary works, often located at the intersection of art and science.

Karol Szymkowiak‘s, Exhibition ‘0169-8629 5223-01750’ at Hustle Coffee Shop focuses on Powidzkie Lake, Poland. The largest lake in Greater Poland has been named the cleanest in the country. The basin is under a silence zone. It has a well-developed flora and fauna and has long remained a popular leisure and recreation spot.

A parallel reality unfolds in the lake’s immediate vicinity. Only a few kilometers away, in 1953 and during the Cold War, the Soviets commenced constructing a military airbase, and to this day, it remains Poland’s most immense military airfield. A few years ago, the Pentagon revealed a top-secret Strategic Air Command Nuclear Weapons Requirements Study for 1959. Among the approximately 2,300 targets within the Eastern Bloc countries and China that the U.S. Strategic Air Command aimed to bomb with nuclear weapons should World War III break out also stands the Powidz airport. The target number was 0169-8629 5223-01750.

It currently houses the 33rd Airlift Base, accommodating, among others, large C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. Powidz is also home to at least a thousand U.S. troops. In 2023, a new LTESM-C logistics and equipment complex opened on the land adjacent to the base for long-term storage and repair of U.S. Army equipment. So far, around 100 hectares of forest have disappeared for the base expansion, some of which lie within the Natura 2000 area and the Powidz Landscape Park. Wide roads and roundabouts capable of accommodating heavy equipment emerged in places that a few years ago only saw field tracks. Near the base, service points addressed to American soldiers open continuously. The MSA combat assets depot, DABS mobile airbase system storage facilities, and a BFS fuel depot are also under construction.

Such investments have resulted in the Powidz facility becoming a vast aviation, logistics, and equipment complex and a leading European NATO base, certainly listed as a strategic target, yet obviously of a different superpower than before. The airport, the base, the forests, the surrounding villages, and the lake received a new number. 

The project was possible thanks to the funding from the budget of the Wielkopolska Region under the grant of the Marshal of the Wielkopolska Region in the field of culture.

Polish Photographic Publication of The Year Archive | 5 – 30 June, Group Exhibition | 12 – 6pm: Mon – Sun

A special photobook library curated by Fotofestiwal Lodz, including the  Polish Photographic Publication of the Year Library for visitors to explore and read. 

Alternaria Alternata | 5 – 30 June

Anna Zagrodzka | Dawn to Dusk: Mon – Sun

The project is a visual reference to how nature transforms the traces of history at former nazi extermination camps as the surrounding biosphere seeps into the buildings and objects, filling them with organic matter.

Sowing the Seeds of the Wild | 23 June

Adam and Dyba Lach | 6:20 – 8:00pm

The Queen’s Film Theatre will host a screening of ‘Sowing the Seeds of the Wild’ by Dyba & Adam Lach, followed by a Director’s Q&A and the official programme launch of Metamorfoza.

Queen’s Film Theatre zaprasza na pokaz filmu “Sowing the Seeds of the Wild” autorstwa Dyby i Adama Lachów, po którym odbędzie się spotkanie z reżyserami oraz oficjalna inauguracja programu Metamorfoza.

See all exhibitions & find out more here:

Belfast Photo Festival

Read more about Metamorfoza here:

https://www.belfastphotofestival.com/metamorfoza

The event is part of the UK/Poland Season 2025 programme, led by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the Polish Cultural Institute, and the British Council. The organisation of the Season in the UK would not be possible without the support of Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.