Poles win London Design Biennale 2025 award: "Traditional craftsmanship and contemporary social commentary"

The Polish Pavilion at the London Design Biennale 2025 won a prestigious medal for the exhibition "Record of Waiting", considered the most inspiring interpretation of this year's event theme.

The installation by Jakub Gawkowski , Monika Rosińska and Maciej Siuda, opened on June 5, transforms the elusive experience of the passage of time into the materiality of a sculptural installation.

London Design Biennale is one of the most important international events dedicated to design and its role in shaping the contemporary world. The fifth edition of the event is held under the slogan "Surface Reflections" , which is to encourage the search for answers to the question of how personal experiences affect the creators themselves and their artistic projects. And it is for the best interpretation of this year's theme that the curatorial team was honored with a prestigious medal ( "Theme Medal" ).

- I congratulate the curatorial team consisting of Jakub Gawkowski , Monika Rosińska and Maciej Siuda , whose work "Record of Waiting" won the prestigious award for the best interpretation of the theme at the London Design Biennale . Polish tradition has an extraordinary power, and the way we interpret it builds our identity - emphasizes Hanna Wróblewska , Minister of Culture and National Heritage .

Exhibition Record of Waiting / photo by Kuba Celej, press materials

He adds that the exhibition combines traditional craftsmanship with current social commentary in an extremely moving way.

The starting point for the project "Record of Waiting" is the paradox of the contemporary approach to time. Although reality is defined by its constant scarcity and inexorable pace , an equally common experience is the compulsion to wait, when we become deprived of control and agency over the management of our own time.

The curatorial team, explaining the idea behind the exhibition, states that we are all waiting, but waiting is not always a choice.

- It is the state and economic structures that decide who has to wait and for how long. Wanting to show waiting not as inaction , but as an important social problem and deeply personal experience , we have juxtaposed two points of view. The first is based on data - numbers illustrating systemic queues: for documents, permits, visits . The second is the voice of the individual - personal stories full of emotions: frustration , weariness , anxiety , resignation , but also hope - explain Jakub Gawkowski , Monika Rosińska and Maciej Siuda.

Creators of the exhibition Record of Waiting / photo: press materials

In the wooden, hand-carved installation in the Polish Pavilion , you can see a representation of twelve situations from contemporary Poland in which waiting plays a significant role. These include hours of daily traffic jams , weeks of waiting for rain in a periodic drought, long years of paying off a mortgage , or months of tension before obtaining a residence permit and waiting for a psychiatric appointment under the public health service.

The curatorial team was inspired by the Polish highlander tradition of woodcarving – a craft originating from shepherds who carved decorative patterns in wood during long periods of sheep grazing in the pastures and in the winter months.

The exhibition is supplemented by materials from research preceding the creation of the installation . On the walls you can find, among other things, a list of traditional highland woodcarving patterns along with information on the average time needed to complete each of them, as well as data on waiting times among people from different social groups based on statistics and personal stories .

The exhibition, organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, will last until June 29, 2025.