The year 2025 at the Centre CROSSROADS
The year 2025 at the Centre for Intercultural Creative Initiatives CROSSROADS, directed by Piotr Franaszek, was a period of consistent implementation of established programme formats and further, ongoing development of long-term activities, including new initiatives with an increasingly broad international scope.
Festivals, workshop cycles, publications, and projects in the city space formed a coherent calendar present in the cultural life of Lublin.
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KODY – festival of traditional and avant-garde music
In 2025, the KODY Festival of Musical Tradition and Avant-Garde continued to realise its formula as an event dedicated to traditional, contemporary, and experimental music in an international perspective. The programme included concerts by artists from diverse cultural backgrounds as well as projects prepared specifically for the festival.
KODY remained a space for encounters between musical practices and artistic activities with an undeniably growing international reach.
The festival curator was Grzegorz Paluch.
More: https://kody-festiwal.pl/
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Open City – activities in the space of Lublin
The 17th edition of the OPEN CITY Festival of Art in Public Space in 2025 was held under the guiding theme “A Conversation with the City”.
This theme takes on particular significance in Lublin, a place with a multilayered history and a strongly marked spatial identity.
The Open City Festival functions as a series of artistic interventions carried out in the public space of Lublin. As every year, projects were created in reference to specific locations and their social and urban contexts. We hosted artists from across Poland as well as from abroad. It should be emphasised that some artistic actions, from the day of the festival opening, will become permanent elements of Lublin’s “urban fabric”. For example, the “Stones of Memory”, commemorating former residents of the city murdered during World War II, are embedded in pavements in front of residential buildings, thereby becoming part of everyday space and education about the city’s history.
The festival engaged residents and audiences not through narrative, but through direct experience of the presence of art in the everyday surroundings of the city of Lublin.
The curator of this edition was Maria Anna Potocka.
More: https://opencity.pl/
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PERCEPCJE. New Forms of Art – second season
In 2025, PERCEPCJE functioned for the second time in the theatrical space as a festival of theatrical performances using tools of artificial intelligence and digital technologies. The programme focused on projects described as theatre of the future, in which AI was an integral element of the creative process, dramaturgy, or the relationship with audiences. The presented performances explored new models of narrative, stage presence, and interaction, positioning PERCEPCJE as a platform for reflection on the directions of contemporary theatre’s development.
In this edition, we hosted performances by actors from Poland, Germany, Latvia, and Taiwan.
We had the opportunity to present two theatrical premieres: the world premiere of “The Explorer’s Faith”, directed by Yen Tzu Chang, and the Polish premiere of “Spy Girls”, directed by Magda Szpecht.
The curator of the PERCEPCJE. New Forms of Art festival was Barbara Żarinow.
More: https://rozdroza.com/percepcje-nowe-formy-sztuki-ii-edycja-wrzesien-pazdziernik-2025/
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ROZDROŻA OF TRADITION / Lublin House of Dance – workshops and dance events
ROZDROŻA OF TRADITION were implemented as a seasonal, regular cycle of dance workshops and social dance events. The programme had an open character and enabled participants to gradually deepen their practice of traditional music and dance. The cycle fulfilled educational and integrative functions, based on direct experience and collective action. We hosted musicians from Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus, performing music of the borderlands.
More at: https://rozdroza.com/rozdroza-tradycji-lubelski-dom-tanca/
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PORTAL at Litewski Square
Lublin was one of the first cities in the world to join the idea of the Portal.
The launch of a new connection with Ipswich in Ireland through the PORTAL at Litewski Square was one of the significant events in Lublin’s cultural life. As part of the activities, interactive events were carried out, including joint online chess games involving residents of cities where analogous installations operate.
The PORTAL project itself introduced into the city space a tool for direct contact with other places and communities, expanding the international dimension of CROSSROADS’s activities and integrating Lublin into a network of global relations.
More: https://rozdroza.com/z-lublina-do-ipswich-kolejny-krok-w-miedzynarodowej-sieci-portali/
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Concert Shell – 2025 season
As every year, CROSSROADS were responsible for coordinating the programme of events at the Concert Shell in the Saxon Garden. The scope of activities included repertoire planning, cooperation with artists, and the implementation of open-air cultural events addressed to a wide audience. The Concert Shell is an important element of the city’s cultural infrastructure, regularly embedded in the seasonal rhythm of Lublin’s events.
More: https://rozdroza.com/muszla-koncertowa-im-romualda-lipko-koncerty-i-wydarzenia-w-lublinie-2025/
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Music releases
In 2025, CROSSROADS continued its publishing activity, releasing further albums documenting artistic projects carried out, among others, within the programmes of the ROZDROŻA Centre. The releases available in our online store constitute a lasting record of the work of artists and curators, as well as independent phonographic productions.
More: https://rozdroza.com/z-lublina-do-ipswich-kolejny-krok-w-miedzynarodowej-sieci-portali/
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The year 2025 was a period of consistent implementation of CROSSROADS’s programme assumptions, integrating the experiences of tradition and contemporary art, undertaking artistic initiatives supporting intercultural dialogue, and building new spaces for artistic and social activities in the public sphere.
