SHORT RESIDENCY AND FESTIVAL ON ZŁOTA STREET IN LUBLIN
This year’s Festival on Złota Street in Lublin, held on Saturday, September 19, 2026, featured a wealth of exceptional cultural events. On that day, Złota Street in Lublin’s Old Town transformed into a vibrant, open space for art, music, poetry, and history. The festival was the culmination of a week-long artist residency featuring two artists from the CreArt network, selected through an open call.
A highlight of the festival was a performative poetry reading from the windows of the tenement houses at 2 and 3 Złota Street. Actors from the Juliusz Osterwa Theatre, Jowita Stępniak and Wojciech Rusin, took on the roles of poets closely associated with the street — Franciszka Arnsztajnowa and Józef Czechowicz. The poet’s great-granddaughter, Olga Stokłosa, also took part in the event.
A key highlight of the festival was the participation of two artists-in-residence who presented their work. During their week-long stay in Lublin, Théo Levillain and Ismael Peltreau — artists from Clermont-Ferrand, France — created interactive installations inspired by the history of Złota Street, its architecture, the legacy of its former goldsmithing workshops, and the street's everyday life.
Workshops, such as the session on creating golden ornaments led by Florentyna Nastaj, attracted significant interest, as did the "Fashion for Poetry" workshop, where Magdalena Krasuska showed participants how to experiment with typography and give poems a new visual form.
Throughout the day, participants could join a walk exploring local history, poetry, and craftsmanship; solve puzzles in "escape boxes"; meet illustrator Kazimierz Kraczoń; and watch a live watercolor painting demonstration, while children took part in creative painting activities. A new mosaic by Anna Rupa, inspired by the legend of the beautiful goldsmith’s daughter, was also unveiled.
Highlights of the festival included a performance-style fashion show prepared by the TRAF Art Studio and the "Złota" festival café, where visitors could sample delicacies from a bygone era, such as pepper cookies.
In the evening, residents and a large crowd of tourists enjoyed an intimate concert by Łukasz Jemioła, and the day concluded with an atmospheric open-air film screening in the patio of the Józef Czechowicz Museum.
The festival on Złota Street was organized as part of the CreArt 3.0 #stringing_together project, co-funded by the European Union’s "Creative Europe" program.
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