Art & Culture

Fascinating new book of secret police surveillance photos reveals chilling Big Brother control methods

In one photo, agents spying on American military attaches from the US Embassy in Warsaw snap the officials in a car that has stopped in a forest. Dated 6 April, 1966, the photo is described as being taken during an ‘intelligence reconnaissance’ operation. Beata Bartecka and Łukasz Rusznica, from How To Look Natural in Photos

Compiled as a warning about today’s internet surveillance, the 150 never-before-seen photos cover a wide range of Poland’s communist secret police activities between 1944 and 1989 and reveal the sometimes drastic measures authorities took to keep ‘enemies of the state’ under control.

Stunning WWII Fangor painting ‘rescued’ at auction is entered into Register of Monuments

The plafond’s entry into the registry signals a remarkable turnaround in its fortunes. Despite its importance to Polish art and culture, the artist’s first ever large-format work depicting seven celestial nudes floating amid clouds and cherubs was only recently ‘rescued’ after an autumn auction was held to fund urgent maintenance work.

Designer comes up with floating co-working space, inspired by bubbles and accessible only by KAJAK

According to designer Agnieszka Białek’s website: “The concept uses new technologies and methods of creation and design. “The creative process was guided by ecological values, especially the limitation of degradation of natural ecosystems, allowing the coexistence of nature and architecture.

Extraordinary story behind discovery of 16th century Greek masterpiece in sleepy Polish village 60 years ago retold in fascinating new documentary

Through blending eye-witness commentary with cinema-style re-enactments, Katarzyna Kowalska’s documentary Polski El Greco (The Polish El Greco) which premieres Monday night, took four years to make and, says the director, “is the story of the struggle of two female inventors, unheard, unappreciated, who for many years no one wanted to take seriously. It is a story about the extraordinary passion of two young women who did not doubt for a moment what their intuition told them.”

Part-time snappers capture breath-taking beauty of Oder Valley in gorgeous photo album

Motivated by a driving desire to expose the spectacular beauty of their local region, two photographers are within touching distance of realizing their dream and releasing an album of their stunning captures of the natural world.

Read all about them! Children’s authors in Poland

On World Children’s Book Day, TFN talks to three of Poland’s top modern authors.

‘Here I write different music…’ Remembering Penderecki, through his garden…

VIDEO: When not at his main home in Kraków, the sprawling grounds in Lusławice were the place where Krzysztof Penderecki spent most of his time, reportedly getting up at 6am each morning for a walk in the gardens. On the first anniversary of his death, TFN takes a look at the importance of the place to his legacy.

Kraków, where my love affair with Poland truly began

Inside a bar thick with smoke, babble, and antique booby traps, I lost myself in the cacophonous atmosphere, gazing helplessly at a barmaid in a tight tiger print top. I’d fallen in love: with her, with Kazimierz, with Kraków and with Poland.

Kraków ballet company reconstructs ‘extremely difficult’ 17th century dance to commemorate composer’s death

The Cracovia Danza Court Ballet, a professional dance ensemble that revives old court dances, spent two months reconstructing the dances to German composer Michael Praetorius’ “Terpsichore”.

Gorgeous atlases worth up to a staggering 400,000 zł finally conserved after two YEARS of painstaking work

The 23 titles in 32 volumes at the Raczyński Library in Poznań include the "Civitatum aliquote insignarum et locorum magis munitorum exacta delineatio" published in Venice in 1574 – the oldest atlas in the library’s collection and one of the oldest around.

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