Ola Knychalska’s (Poland) practice moves between curatorial and pedagogical work, artistic research, and involvement in political and activist movements. Through a political lens, they create conditions for collective pedagogical processes that experiment with artistic development as forms of learning and social practice. Since 2020, she has been working to create Kem School – an experimental pedagogical program that explores social choreography, reclaims the body as a central site of knowledge, and dives into queer methodologies and practices. Ola likes to work within collectives and self-organized, non-hierarchical structures – exploring both their potential and their ongoing challenges.
During their residency, they will seek to connect with local educational initiatives led by artists and collectives. She is interested in how similar initiatives shape their own infrastructures – from learning methodologies to everyday forms of organizing – and if they can function as a prototype for alternative logics of economy, ecology, and social relations. Ola would also like to explore art as a phenomenological practice – a way of sensing, reflecting, and making relations through experience, matter, and the body – in conjunction with other residents in her cohort.
Ola is part of Kem, a feminist and queer collective based in Warsaw, creating spaces for shared learning and nightlife, including Kem School, an experimental program on art and critical pedagogy; club events, and other community gatherings. They also contribute to Zakole, a collective rooted in a wetland ecosystem in Warsaw that explores ways of perceiving, caring for, and representing urban ecologies. In 2025, their exhibition Would You Lay Your Eggs Here? Haunted Landscapes of the Urban Wetland was presented at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the Academy of Arts in Kraków, working on experimental pedagogies and collective infrastructures of learning.
Ola was born in Poland and is currently based in Warsaw.