OSAD

OPEN SYNERGY OF ART DAYS · 1ST EDITION

The OSAD Festival is the first undertaking in the region to combine contemporary music, visual arts, performance, and scientific and educational activities in a single programme narrative.

IDEA AND THEME OF THE EDITION

The theme of the first edition — settling reality — refers to the layers of our experiences, memories and emotions which, like sediment, shape how we see the world. This natural process becomes a metaphor for artistic practices that not only gather experiences, emotions and images, but also filter them, protect them and give them new meaning. OSAD is a festival that invites you to look at reality through the lens of what has settled in memory, in the body and in social space — and of what we can draw out of these layers.

SYNERGY

Synergy is at the heart of the festival. Combining many disciplines opens new horizons, broadens contexts and uncovers meanings. Synergy is a process similar to the build-up of layers of sediment: each new particle adds depth, structure and weight. In the same way, OSAD brings together artists, genres and ideas — to create a space in which a new whole is born from diverse elements.

MAIN DAYS 19–22 NOVEMBER

4DAYS
4CONCERTS
3LECTURES
2EXHIBITIONS
4WORLD PREMIERES

Accompanying events in Olsztyn and the region from 6 November · 16 events over 17 days in total

WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT

SYNERGY

Contemporary music festivals and art biennales are growing in Poland and around the world, but almost always separately. OSAD puts music, image and performance together in one programme — there is no other event like it in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship today. Science is not an add-on here but raw material: individual events creatively process research findings from various fields and engage in dialogue with them.

NOTHING HERE IS ART FOR ART'S SAKE

Each event was created with a view to what will settle in us and remain long after the festival. This year's programme involves more than fifty artists from Poland and abroad — performers, composers and authors of exhibited works: Prof. Ewa Marciniec, who has sung on the world's greatest stages, at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus Berlin and Venice's Teatro La Fenice; the Simultaneo octet, which opened the 67th Warsaw Autumn at the National Philharmonic; and Duo Chrysalides from Brussels. You will hear four pieces for the very first time.

ORGANIZATORZY

The OSAD Festival is organised by the BalticAlians Foundation for the Support of Artistic Activities and the Eques Fine Arts Foundation. The strategic partner is the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn.

BalticAlians Foundation for the Support of Artistic Activities

The BalticAlians Foundation for the Support of Artistic Activities carries out cultural, educational and performative projects focused on contemporary music and interdisciplinary art forms. Since 2020 it has organised nearly thirty events involving more than one hundred and fifty young artists, including the “Penderecki in Memoriam” series in three philharmonic halls, the show “Artystą Być” (“To Be an Artist”) and the free educational platform AccompanIT.

MEET THE FOUNDATION

Eques Fine Arts Foundation

The Eques Fine Arts Foundation supports visual artists, runs exhibition projects and promotes contemporary art through artistic events, collaboration with artists, and educational and curatorial activities. Over the past year it has organised six exhibitions, twelve thematic workshops and four concerts, and — in cooperation with Mirek Mastalerz's Music Stage — around one hundred concerts featuring, among others, Urszula Dudziak, Hanna Banaszak and Wojtek Mazolewski.

MEET THE FOUNDATION

FESTIVAL DIRECTORS

Joanna Kaczmarczyk

Visual artist, president of the Eques Fine Arts Foundation. A graduate of Art Education at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Warmia and Mazury, where she is now pursuing doctoral research in the discipline of fine arts and conservation of works of art. A member of the art group “Fałdy”.

In her work she seeks the place of contemporary humans in a degraded environment — natural and social. She is interested in interpersonal relationships and mechanisms of interdependence, as well as in how the state of nature is reflected in people's mental condition. She works in mixed media, combining materials and strategies that allow her to experiment with form.

She has shown her work at exhibitions in Olsztyn, Łódź and Poznań, as well as in Italy, Germany and Croatia. She has received scholarships from the Mayor of Olsztyn and the Marshal of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. Winner of the First Prize at the 11th Olsztyn Art Biennale and a distinction at the 2nd Textile Biennale in Poznań.

Jan Staruch

Violinist, president of the BalticAlians Foundation for the Support of Artistic Activities. A graduate of the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk, he also completed postgraduate studies for culture managers at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics. He is pursuing doctoral research at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Warmia and Mazury in the discipline of musical arts.

He specialises in contemporary music. In 2026 he took part in the world premieres of Jonathan Bradley's “Maris” for carillon and violin at the 28th Gdańsk Carillon Festival and Cornelia Zambila's “Metaxy” at the University of Huddersfield. He has performed as a soloist with the Baltic Philharmonic and the Warmia-Masuria Philharmonic, and at the festivals “Metropolia jest ok”, “Języki Muzyki” and “NeoArte”.

As a soloist he has won, among others, First Prizes at the Royal Sound Music Competition in Canada, Adria Art Fest in Slovenia, and the Città di Palmanova and Città di Barletta competitions in Italy. With Bartosz Wiśniewski in the duo VistaDuo he won the Grand Prix at the 25th Music Without Limits in Druskininkai, Second Prize at the 3rd Paul Badura-Skoda International Competition in Vienna and Third Prize at the Maurice Ravel Competition in Paris. Since 2020 he has led the BalticAlians Foundation, which has carried out nearly thirty events involving more than one hundred and fifty young artists — from the “Penderecki in Memoriam” series in three philharmonic halls to the free AccompanIT platform with 320 accompaniment recordings for children learning the violin.

PARTNERS AND PATRONS

Organisers

BalticAlians Foundation for the Support of Artistic Activities
Eques Fine Arts Foundation

Honorary patrons

Rector of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn
Marshal of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship
Warmian-Masurian Voivode
Head of Olsztyn County

Media patrons

TVP3 Olsztyn
Polskie Radio Olsztyn
Radio UWM FM
TV Kopernik
Polskie Centrum Informacji Muzycznej POLMIC
Presto
Format
NN6T
Kultura i Sztuka

OSAD

IDEA AND THEME OF THE EDITION

SYNERGY

WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT

SYNERGY

NOTHING HERE IS ART FOR ART'S SAKE

ORGANIZATORZY

BalticAlians Foundation for the Support of Artistic Activities

Eques Fine Arts Foundation

FESTIVAL DIRECTORS

Joanna Kaczmarczyk

Jan Staruch

PARTNERS AND PATRONS

Organisers

Honorary patrons

Media patrons

Partners and sponsors