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Credit: Magdalena Pietrucin
The Potato Library is Warsaw’s first public intersectional library and reading room for art and design research and activism, located in the district of Ochota. We founded the library because we felt that the artistic community lacked access to the books and magazines with the most relevant theories, philosophies and methodologies that are defining our world of increased polarisation, colonial violence and climate breakdown.
The Potato Library is trust-based and has over 400 books and zines for anyone interested in how the creative arts can play a progressive role in society. It’s by the community, for the community.
You can find the full list of the books available here
Friends of the Potato Library:
The Nieuwe Instituut (NL), Aksioma: Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana (SI), 12:15 Publishing (LT), Ujazdowski Castle: Centre for Contemporary Art (PL), Institute for Network Cultures (NL), PUNCH (RO), Krytyka Polityczna (PL), Plurality University (FR), The Institute for PostNatural Studies (ES), SpeculativeEdu (EU), The Modern Institute (UK), Hellebore Magazine (UK), Jeremy Deller (UK), Jane Wither Studio (UK), Pleasant Place Magazine (NL), Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EST), The Posthumanist (DE), Robida (IT), Gender and Sexuality Workshop at The Centre for American Studies ( PL), Braids Journal, Idea Books (NL), Set Margins’ (NL), L x H x B (NL), Valiz (NL), Noemi Biasetton (IT), James Benn (UK), Bęc Zmiana (PL), Wydawnictwo Współbycie (PL).
The Potato Library is located on ul. Grójecka 75, behind the main building of Ośrodek Kultruy Ochoty.
Meet our Library Ambassadors
Paweł Wodziński
Paweł is an artist, curator and director of art institutions. Founder and head of the towarzystwo teatralne (1997-2001), director of the Polski Theatre in Poznan (2000-2003), curator of the Polish exhibition at the Prague Quadriennale (2007), director of the Polski Theatre in Bydgoszcz (2014-2017), curator of the Festival of New Dramaturgies (2014-2017) and director of Biennale Warszawa (2017-2022). Member of the Board of the Biennale Warszawa Foundation. Designer and director of dozens of plays and performance activities, including Wolna Trybuna (Theatre Institute in Warsaw, European Solidarity Centre, 2013), Solidarność. Rekonstrukcja (Polish Theatre in Bydgoszcz, 2017), Solidarność. Nowy Projekt (Biennale Warszawa, TR Warsaw, 2017), Globalna wojna domowa (Biennale Warszawa, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 2018). Curator of the project Atlas of Planetary Violence (Biennale Warsaw, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw 2018), both editions of Biennale Warszawa - Let's Organise Our Future! (2019), Seeing Stones and Spaces Beyond the Valley (2022). Co-founder of the regional collaborative network East Europe Biennial Alliance. He is also involved in theory and writes critical and analytical texts, published, among others, in the monthly magazine "Dialog", "Notes na 6 tygodni", the Polish edition of "Le Monde diplomatique". He is a Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.
Agnieszka Aysen Kaim
Agnieszka is a turcologist and a practising storyteller from the Association Grupa Studnia O. and, an interpreter of Turkish. She chose Oriental studies because of her Turkish descent, and she translates because it is the fastest way of moving between the two cultures. Agnieszka tells stories and teaches to shed light on the complexity of cultures, values, traditions as well as personal stories. As a part of the Grupa Studnia O. (a pioneering group of storytellers in Poland, formed in 1997 in Warsaw) she generally carries out Oriental projects, especially Turkish, Balkan and Persian ones, resorting to epic poems and traditional stories unknown in Poland and Europe as well as personal histories of famous Poles related to the Orient. She works as assistant professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.
Ośrodek Kultury Ochoty