13th September – 8th November 2025, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast

The Golden Thread Gallery is proud to present Radical Hope, a new exhibition developed in collaboration with Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, Poland. Curated from Collection II, one of Poland’s most significant collections of contemporary art, the exhibition offers a timely reflection on uncertainty, resilience, and the transformative potential of art.

Collection II, held by the Arsenal Gallery and shaped under the direction of Monika Szewczyk, traces the evolving landscape of contemporary art in Poland and Eastern Europe over the past three decades. Developed as an ‘open corpus,’ the collection is a living archive: dynamic, growing, and responsive to the shifting narratives of our time.

The exhibition takes its title and inspiration from Radical Hope, a book by philosopher Jonathan Lear. In his foreword to the Polish edition, Piotr Nowak articulates three urgent questions that underpin the exhibition:

• How does one live in a world that has suddenly lost all meaning?
• Is hope conceivable in such a world?
• If so, what language can express it?

From Białystok to Belfast, these questions resonate deeply. Though Poland has not been directly involved in the war in Ukraine, the suppression of protests in Belarus, or the unrest in Georgia, the psychological and political impact of these regional upheavals is deeply felt. A growing sense of threat, helplessness, and disorientation has unsettled the sense of security once taken for granted.

Radical Hope does not offer easy answers. Instead, it asks whether art can be a guide through uncertain times. Can artists, through their vision and practice, help us perceive new meanings and imagine futures not yet written?

The exhibition is made possible through the support of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, fostering international dialogue through the arts. It marks a unique collaboration between Golden Thread Gallery and Arsenal Gallery, two institutions committed to contemporary artistic practices that question, confront, and reimagine the world in which we live.

This exhibition is part of the UK/Poland Season 2025 organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, British Council and Polish Cultural Institute in London, and supported by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Poland.

Find out more about the exhibition here:

Radical Hope – works from the Arsenal Gallery collection : Golden Thread Gallery