Unruhe/Unrest | Krzyś Bykowski, Aliaksandr Danilkin, Iza Michniowska
exhibition summarizing the sixth edition of the OP_YOUNG mentorship program for young artists

Curator: Paulina Brelińska-Garsztka
Exhibition dates: 13.03-10.05.2026

The exhibition Unruhe takes as its point of departure Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis, whose modernist vision of the future, at the moment of its premiere, functioned as a projection of twentieth-century anxieties. Lang set his film in the year 2026, portraying a world entirely subordinated to mechanisation, rigid labour hierarchies, structures of power and the radical alienation of the individual. Today, as this date is no longer a futuristic horizon, the director’s silent-film phantasm returns as a reference to experiences that are real and present.

The exhibition juxtaposes Metropolis with a sense of anxiety that is no longer a speculative anticipation of crisis or a hypothetical warning construct, but rather an experience materially inscribed in the everyday functioning of individuals and communities. It is an existential state that does not emerge at a singular point, but unfolds durationally, becoming the backdrop for thinking, acting and feeling. The eponymous Unruhe – a German term denoting restlessness, non-rest and a state of permanent imbalance – does not signify a transient tension or emotional response. Instead, it describes the temporal condition in which we live, where respite becomes increasingly unattainable while alertness and tension assume the status of normative experience. In this sense, Unruhe names the experience of living an accelerated life and the tyranny of possibilities. Significantly, the German word Unruh, referring to the balance wheel that regulates the passage of time in a clock, also resonates within this narrative. Its incessant movement establishes the rhythmic structure of the exhibition, composed of iterative artistic gestures that draw upon unsettling formal structures, natural raw materials and symbolically framed rituals.

Within this framework, the human body – alongside the bodies represented in the exhibition – operates as a medium that manifests the traces of Unruhe: anxiety, fatigue and trauma. The exhibition opens from this corporeal perspective, treating it as a reflective lens through which to consider the interrelations between time, systems and human sensibility. The featured images and objects evoke a futuristic vision; however, rather than relying on literal citations from the film, the pervasive anxiety is articulated through an exhibition comprising works by three artists. Each fabric, fold, crease, ornament and sculptural protrusion generates a spatial field saturated with folk beliefs, personal experiences and inspirations variously derived from nature.

Paulina Brelińska-Garsztka

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Curator: Paulina Brelińska-Garsztka
Coordination and Production: Agnieszka Śrutwa, Joanna Poślednia
PR: Natalia Gaj
Visual Identity: Jurek Mossakowski
Editing: Agnieszka Śrutwa
Translation: Karol Waniek, Volkmar Umlauft
Collaboration: Iga Mikuśkiewicz, Magdalena Musiał, Polina Nestrenko, Walentyna Shaiko, Ivan Shpak, Agnieszka Wróblewska 

Organizers: OP ENHEIM, VOP
Patron: GENTZ
Honorary Patron: WOMAK
Partners: OPEN Reklama Oksana Solnik Krzyżanowska, Heinle, Wischer und Partner Architekci, KEIM
Media Patrons: Magazyn SZUM, Notes Na 6 Tygodni, Pismo Artystyczne Format, Radio LUZ, Presto, PLNDesign.pl, Artinfo.pl