Paweł Kowalski, curator, producer and visual artist, engaged in the organization of TIFF Festival, will go for a residency in Dresden in April 2018. Cooperation between siter cities – Wrocław and Dresden – dates back to the 1960's, and the partnership agreement was amended at the beginning of the 1990's, and since then both cities have been cooperating with each other, especially in the area of culture. The Culture Zone Wrocław participates in this cooperation, mainly as part of the AIR Wro programme, also thanks to the cooperation with the Geh8 Art Space and Studios.

During is residency, Kowalski will develop his art archive, which was established back in 2015. The main focus of the curator is the subject of revolution and the role of art in the times of social unrest. As Kowalski says: “We live in times of a great social turmoil, when societies all around the world question the status-quo. Ground-up movements are becoming stronger and gaining followers and momentum. Some of the most important, recent examples are: the Anonymous group, Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring. At their core I see a fight against injustice and oppresive inequality. On the other hand, history shows that revolution rarely brings about purely positive change. More often than not it leads to an all-out conflict, in which all sides ultimately lose. Sometimes the new system ends up being even more restricting than the original one.”

Online archive created by Kowalski, is a kind of his interpretation of these social changes and fears. It consists of works on paper, original comic art (splashes, pages, comic strips), silkscreens, illustration, production cels from animated movies. During his residency, he would like to devote his time in Dresden to work further on developing the concept of the collection and an exhibition based on it. The show could include some of the pieces that he owns, as well as pieces from already existing collections or created specifically for the exhibition. The time in Dresden will be also dedicated to the reasearch for the local and Wrocław-based emerging artists, whose work deals with similar matters. Residency will be also a perfect moment to begin a discussion about the role of comic art in the environment and to highlight the context of collecting pieces related to this specific field.