In 1962, Picelj initiated a series of his self-published “Edition a” art booklets, having released a total of seven publications up until 1964. Each issue of “Edition a” featured the work of one artist —mostly of a colleague whose work he admired.
In 1962, Picelj initiated a series of his self-published “Edition a” art booklets, having released a total of seven publications up until 1964. Each issue of “Edition a” featured the work of one artist —mostly of a colleague whose work he admired.
Art as an experience
We have been running “Heritage in our hands” since 2025, steadily developing a cultural education programme for children and young people. Its aim is to broaden access to art, particularly for young people from places where cultural opportunities are limited, while nurturing cultural literacy, sensitivity, creativity and the ability to interpret art independently.
We want young people to be more than audiences for culture. We invite them into museums and galleries, give them opportunities to encounter artworks up close, discuss them and discover their stories, and then create works of their own. We show that heritage is not confined to the past – it can be a starting point for conversations about the present, our own identities, relationships and the world we live in.
The programme grew out of OmenaArt Foundation’s broader commitment to safeguarding cultural heritage and raising awareness of its value. Since 2023, the Foundation has combined its exhibition and educational activities with tangible support for cultural institutions. One of the most important examples is its long-standing collaboration with the Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów, which includes the conservation of the seventeenth-century decorations in the Northern Gallery. These experiences provided a natural starting point for a programme that passes knowledge of art and its preservation on to future generations.
Heritage that belongs to future generations
Each edition of “Heritage in our hands” takes the programme in a new direction, but its guiding idea remains unchanged: we want to bring young people closer to culture.
Art can nurture attentiveness, openness and critical thinking. It can offer a language for conversations about history, the present and personal experiences. That is why our aim is not simply for participants to visit a museum or gallery, but, above all, for them to feel that these places and stories are for them, too.
“Woven Stories” captures the idea behind the project as a whole: just as individual threads come together to form a fabric, the knowledge, experiences, encounters and personal stories of participants weave together to shape their own relationship with culture.
“Heritage in our hands” is made possible through the commitment of Omenaa Foundation and OmenaArt Foundation.
2026: “Woven stories”
The next edition, “Heritage in our hands: Woven stories”, brought participants directly into some of Warsaw’s leading cultural institutions, combining encounters with art with hands-on creative activities.
The project involved 400 young people from the Podlaskie and Lubelskie regions. Between 15 May and 20 June, groups travelled to Warsaw from places including Bielsk Podlaski, Suwałki, Orla, the area around Przerośl, Lublin, Puławy and Siennica Różana. We held a total of 40 workshop sessions.
For some of the young participants, this was their first visit to the capital and their first direct encounter with contemporary art.
The central theme of this year’s edition was textiles and the stories embedded in materials, weaves and textures. Its starting point was an understanding of fabric as much more than a material – as a carrier of memory, identity, emotions, traditions and shared experiences.
Participants visited the Orangery at the Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów, where they explored the TOP CHARITY ART exhibition and worked together to create large-scale artworks inspired by textiles, African culture and the idea of community, among other themes. At Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, they explored form, space and self-expression. The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw became a place to encounter abstraction and experimental artistic techniques, while at Phenomenaa Gallery, young people discovered contemporary African art and explored materials, form and collective creative practice.
2025: from art conservation to thoughtful engagement with art
In the first edition of the project, we focused particularly on the protection and conservation of art. We wanted to show young audiences that caring for heritage means not only looking at artworks, but also learning about their histories, materials, ageing processes and the work of specialists who help preserve them for future generations.
As part of the programme, we produced materials exploring subjects including the conservation of Tadeusz Kantor’s “Parapluie-emballage” and the restoration of the historic decorations in the Northern Gallery at Wilanów Palace. We invited Professor Iwona Szmelter – a renowned conservator of modern and contemporary art affiliated with the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw – to collaborate on the project. The programme also explored the preservation of ephemeral art forms that pose particular conservation challenges, such as performance and video art.
This allowed participants to see art from a perspective that usually remains hidden from the public: to discover the processes involved in safeguarding an artwork, the importance of documentation and authenticity, and the responsibility of preserving both its material form and the artist’s intentions.
