Exhibition Islands of Freedom at the Polish Library of Paris, the Kultura Literary Institute, Libella Bookshop, and Lambert Gallery

As part of the Jerzy Giedroyć and Józef Czapski Year and the 80th anniversary of the Kultura Literary Institute. Opening evening of the exhibition: 6:30 p.m., Friday, 11 September 2026.

September 11 – November 7, 2026

The exhibition “Islands of Freedom” showcases three exceptional venues that have become major hubs of Polish culture, independent thought, and intellectual dialogue in France over the past two centuries: the Polish Library in Paris, the Literary Institute and the magazine Kultura in Maisons-Laffitte, as well as the Libella bookstore and the Lambert Gallery.

Born at different moments in history, and in response to the varied experiences of Polish emigration, these places shared a single conviction: culture and free thought can endure under political and historical constraint. Each stood as its own "island," while remaining connected to the others through a network of people, ideas, books, and artistic and intellectual encounters.

Konstanty A. Jeleński spoke of this continuity in the tradition of Polish emigration as the “Polish continuities,” tying together the experience of the 19th-century Great Emigration and the founders of the Polish Library with the work of Polish exile circles in the 20th century, such as the creation of the Literary Institute Kultura.

The exhibition “Islands of Freedom” sheds light on this continuity across venues, figures and ideas that, despite the upheavals of history, have safeguarded freedom of thought and kept Polish culture alive beyond the country’s borders.

She will present, alongside the artworks by artists linked to the “Islands of Freedom,” publications, correspondence, and a selection of archives drawn from the collections of the Polish Library of Paris and the Kultura Literary Institute.

Roundtable during the opening night featuring the following participants:

Anna Bernhardt – Kultura Literary Institute

Guillaume Gros – University of Toulouse II

Piotr Kłoczowski – Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw

Mikołaj Nowak-Rogoziński (independent researcher)

The roundtable will be followed by the exhibition's opening reception.

Photos:

Jerzy Giedroyc in his office at the Literary Institute in Paris, 1955; photograph by Henryk Giedroyc, from the archives of the Literary Institute in Paris