Refugees Welcome

As I write this text for the Refugees Welcome exhibition and auction catalog, it is the middle of November 2024. We are organizing the event along with the Ocalenie Foundation for the eighth time. It will not launch for another two months, but the mercury has already dropped to freezing and the first snow has begun to fall. I am gazing at Kateryna Lysovenko’s intriguing painting Migrant Swans, which the artist has donated to be auctioned off in January. The birds in the title are sitting in a train compartment next to a man with blurred facial features. Their black, almost human legs drape from their seat, and outside the window of the train there is nothing but blue sky. Not all swans migrate, but many of them seek shelter year after year at bodies of water that haven’t frozen over, in western and southern Europe. Nature has always been in constant motion.

The humanitarian crisis along the Belarusian border began in 2021. According to the report No Safe Passage: Migrants’ Deaths at the European Union–Belarusian Border, edited by Alicja Palęcka from the Ocalenie Foundation, “By the end of March 2024, 116 border deaths had been documented in four countries (Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland) and at least another 26 cases had been reported by migrants in testimonies.” I dread to think what these statistics look like now, and how they will look in January 2025, when in the forests along the border, even more people will certainly suffer on the road due to hypothermia and exhaustion following repeated pushbacks.

Last year alone, the Ocalenie Foundation assisted 15,000 migrants and refugees from all corners of the world. The situation on the Polish–Belarusian border has not improved at all, and more people in need of support continue to arrive in the EU, but unfortunately the social mobilization following the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine is weakening. The foundation has observed a falling-off in the number of donors, and this year was forced to close its offices in Łódź and Łomża. 

This year’s pre-auction show is the first exhibition in the new MSN Warsaw building since it was opened to the public in a two-week festival in October. This edition of the auction may lack some of the momentum from previous years, when the number of participating artists grew each year. Learning from experience, along with the Ocalenie Foundation and the Friends of MSN Warsaw, we are testing our strength against our intentions. We don’t expect to break any sales records, but thanks to the generous donations by artists, we want to focus rather on systematic, ongoing maintenance and support of activities that are pursued quietly but are often of existential importance for the individuals involved. 

The exhibition will feature works by artists such as Jan Dobkowski, Dominika Kowynia, Jarosław Fliciński, Mariola Przyjemska and Joanna Piotrowska. In the upper galleries at MSN Warsaw, installation of the show from the permanent collection starting in February 2025 is already underway. Next to the gallery where we are now showing the works donated by artists, an installation from the museum’s collection by Sandra Mujinga, an artist from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will be shown. In its form, her sculpture resembles the construction of nomadic, lightweight shelter used by people on the road. It is our great hope that with your support, that road will have a happy ending for many people.

The auction will take place on Sunday, 19 January 2025, at 4:00 PM.

The donated works may be viewed during the exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art at ul. Marszałkowska 103, Warsaw, from 10 to 19 January 2025.

You can participate in the auction by:

1. bidding on your own, or

2. placing an auction order through DESA Unicum.

In both cases, the first necessary step is to register as a customer on the DESA Unicum

website: bid.desa.pl/register no later than 24 hours before the auction, i.e. by 4:00 PM on

Saturday, 18 January.

1. Bidding on your own

During the auction, you can bid Iive:

a. on-site athe the museum. Please come to the museum between 3:00 and 4:00 PM to collect your auction numer, or

b. online, on the platform bid.desa.pl or in the DESA Unicum app. Both the portal and the mobile app are available in Polish and English.

2. Placing an auction order through DESA Unicum.

Before the auction, you can place an order to bid for selected works by phone (direct contact with the bidder during the auction) or with a price limit (the bidder conducts the auction on your behalf, up to the amount declared by you). Such an order can be submitted in two ways:

a. via DESA Unicum website: bid.desa.pl. Orders are accepted no later than 3:00 PM on Saturday, 18 January, in Polish and English.

b. via e-mail: zlecenia@desa.pl or by phone: +48 22 163 66 00.

DESA Unicum will not charge the buyers an auction fee.

Delivery of purchased works

Upon receipt of payment, buyers will have the option to collect their art pieces in Warsaw or have them shipped at the buyer’s expense after the exhibition. The works of art will be available for collection at the DESA Unicum office, ul. Piękna 1a, Warsaw, from 21 January 2025.

In case of any questions please contact: aukcja@refugeeswelcome.pl

More info at: refugeeswelcome.pl/aukcja

Useful information

Auction regulations 

Bidding instructions in video form 

FAQ about bidding