Marta Michalowska

notes from/on/beyond a border

A hybrid text and image piece, weaving together notes, lists, diary entries from the Notes App, as well as phone images, fragments of text messages, and digital press cuttings, collected between 16 February 2016 and 23 October 2023.

Published in the first volume of Strings in March 2024

Lunar Caustic: A Memory in a Grain of Salt

A prose poem looking at the chemistry of photography – silver nitrate – and questioning what lies beyond the frame of a photograph, commissioned by Theatrum Mundi for the series A Love Affair. 

Published in a collection A Love Affair by Theatrum Mundi and Atlas Projectos in 2023.

Grey Curtain

A short story looking 
at the experience of the loss of a life partner. 

Published by Litro Magazine in Loneliness issue , both in print and online, Summer 2021.

Cyprinus Carpio from Tesco

A short story looking at the meandering origins of the Polish Christmas Carp – a fusion dish between Jewish, Polish and Soviet traditions.

Commissioned and published by Migrant Journal in its 6th volume in May 2019, accompanied by illustrations by Seb Pietrovito.

Minor Characters

A short story reimagining the judging of the architecture competition for the Tenth-Anniversary Stadium, Warsaw, in 1953.

Published in the collection of stories, essays and interviews Concrete and Ink: Storytelling and the Future of Architecture, edited by Marta Michalowska and Justinien Tribillon, Theatrum Mundi & nai010 publishers Rotterdam, 2021.

Travelling Home

A short story looking at the experience of travelling / driving across Google Maps during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Published in the collection of stories, essays, poems, conversations, photographs and illustrations Interior Realms, edited by Andrea Cetrulo and Marta Michalowska , Theatrum Mundi, London and Paris, 2021.

Urban Backstages

A book of essays looking at cultural infrastructure across London, Glasgow, Paris and Marseille. 

Edited with Cecily Chua, Labeja Kodua Okullu and Marta Michalowska, featuring essays by Andrea Cetrulo, Cecily Chua, Elahe Karimnia, Fani Kostourou, John Bingham-Hall, and Richard Sennett.

Published by Theatrum Mundi in 2023.

Site Report

A collection of poetry in prose, verse and screenplay by  Rhona Warwick Paterson, where windows are a lot more than panes of glass, tables have minds of their own and sinks are conduits that connect to the wider world beyond the home.

Edited by Marta Michalowska, published by Theatrum Mundi, London and Paris, 2022.

Navigations: Scoring the Moment

A book-length essay by dancer, choreographer and Theatrum Mundi’s Research Fellow Adesola Akinleye, proposing a transdisciplinary lexicon of Place-making.

Edited by Marta Michalowska, published by Theatrum Mundi, London and Paris, 2022.

Infrastructuring: Four Conversations on Cultural Infrastructure

A book by Susannah Haslam, exploring the relationship between cultural institutions and cultural infrastructures through four dialogues with cultural practitioners: Sean Roy Parker, Cecilia Wee, Meneesha Kellay, and co-directors of Theatrum Mundi – Marta Michalowska and John Bingham-Hall.

Edited by Marta Michalowska and Lou-Atessa Marcellin, published by Theatrum Mundi, London and Paris, 2021.

Resonance 2

A collection of new writing in English, Finnish and Arabic by Jen Calleja, Saara Turunen, and Jokha Alharthi, with translations by Daisy Vaughan, Owen F. Witesman, Maria Pakkala, and Marilyn Booth. The publication features works in visual arts by Rawan AlMahrouqi, Safa Baluchi, Ruqaiya Mazar, Riham Noor Al Zadjali and Elina Brotherus.

Edited by Marta Michalowska and Thomas Zanon-Larcher, published by The Wapping Project, 2020.

Resonance 1

A collection of new writing by Alia Trabucco Zerán, published in the original in Spanish alongside the English translation by Sophie Hughes; Gareth Evans, and Laura Cannell. The publication features works in photography by Karen Stuke commissioned by The Wapping Project in 2013.

Edited by Marta Michalowska and Thomas Zanon-Larcher, published by The Wapping Project, 2019.

To Step Across the Line

A collection of new writing in prose and poetry on borders, lines, frames and edges that constrict, demarcate, define, enclose, separate, limit and open possibilities by Kapka Kassabova, Lea Anderson, and Tara Bergin, alongside a text and image piece by artist and filmmaker Mairéad McClean.

Edited by Marta Michalowska and Thomas Zanon-Larcher, published by The Wapping Project, 2018.

Passage

A collection of poetry responding to the theme of passage by Agnieszka Studzinska, Heather Phillipson, and Alia Syed, alongside a text and image piece by artist Shona Illingworth in collaboration with human rights lawyer Nick Grief and researcher Andrew Hoskins.

Edited by Marta Michalowska and Thomas Zanon-Larcher, published by The Wapping Project, 2017.

Transition, Transformation, Transience

A collection of new writing in poetry and essay responding to the themes of transition, transformation and transience by So Mayer, Lavinia Greenlaw, Alice Butler and Andrea Luka Zimmerman.

Edited by Marta Michalowska and Thomas Zanon-Larcher, published by The Wapping Project, 2016.