Collective drawing in front of MSN. “Social Mapping” by Oscar Murillo

Join us in kicking off summer at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw! Colombian artist Oscar Murillo invites you to participate in an open-air drawing event, which will become part of his international project “Social Mapping,” prepared for the 36th São Paulo Biennial.

In the heart of the city, on the newly opened Central Square, we will spread out a 25-meter canvas on which everyone—regardless of age, experience, or skill—will be able to leave their mark. Together, we will create a work that will travel to Brazil and become part of a large-format collective work presented in Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo, where it will be continued by subsequent visitors to the Biennial.

You don't need to bring anything – all you need is good intentions and a summer openness to joint action. We invite families with children, young people, adults, and seniors – anyone who wants to get involved in creating art that is accessible, joyful, and rooted in the community.

This event opens the summer season at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. As part of it, we also invite you to visit the exhibitions – throughout the summer, students up to the age of 26 can buy an admission ticket to the MSN for a symbolic PLN 1.

Concept author: Oscar Murillo
Hosted by: MSN Education Team

Oscar Murillo's practice focuses on the social dimension of art, in which collective action and participation play a key role. The artist regularly invites friends, family members, and colleagues to collaborate with him, initiating situations that generate communal energy. He has organized parties at the Serpentine Gallery, walked the streets of New York with mateos—traditional Colombian papier-mâché figurines—created a temporary chocolate factory inside a gallery, hosted bingo games and lotteries, fashion shows featuring young designers, and performative actions in London parks. All these activities, often defying clear classification, are based on engagement and exchange that go far beyond the framework of a traditional studio.

Oscar Murillo develops the same ideas in his paintings. The fabrics, sewn together, bear traces of bodies, footprints, dirt, and dust—they are a physical record of a process involving other people and specific places. The starting point for his works are often simple, commonly recognizable words, such as “bingo” or “arroz,” which become tools for exploring multilayered cultural identities and the meanings assigned to everyday goods and gestures.

The artist consciously uses the aesthetics of modernism to create democratic art based on participation and accessibility. Murillo regularly locates his activities and works outside the institutional circuit – in everyday spaces such as schools, churches, market halls, and streets – emphasizing their openness and communal character.