English below:

Fundacja Ziemniaki i* is a Warsaw based NGO established by Josh Plough at the beginning of 2021. Our mission is to explore the social potential of art, design and folklore and how they can work towards creating a less polarised society. The setting up of the foundation was fully self-funded and now we’re reaching out into the community in the hope that we can raise enough money to cover upcoming costs (renovation of community space, etc), setting up a talent-development scheme, paying fair wages to artists, designers and collaborators and the implementation of social projects with communities in and around Warsaw.

We’ve set the target at 22,000 PLN, which roughly equates to £4000/€4800. With the funding we will be able to start our collaboration with the technologist and Digital Ecology expert Joanna Murzyn and her work with the Domy Dziecka orphanage in Chotomów. We hope to run workshops (overseen by a different roster of artists) with the kids exploring folklore, technology and identity. We want to support Joanna and the children she works with by introducing them to new, fascinating and creative subjects that they haven't had the chance to encounter before.

Another project involves working with a community situated outside Warsaw. Together with artist Joanna Żaboklicka, we will work with the residents in the small village of Baranów who are threatened with eviction due a planned mega-airport that is to built there in the coming years (some people have already been evicted). Hundreds of years of history and stories will be tarmaced over in the name of progress. We will go there and record those stories and give a platform to the people, animals and plants behind them. By telling their stories, recording their histories and documenting their connections to the landscape, we want to empower them and strengthen their voices in political discourse. We strongly oppose the new airport on ecological and social grounds and we hope to be able to challenge the dominate economic narrative by showing the potential human and environmental damage that will be done.

Alongside these projects, the foundation aims to run a paid talent-development scheme that will work with one young Polish curator for a period of either six months or a year. We want to nurture a new compassionate generation of Central and Eastern European creatives and we hope this talent-development scheme will be the first of many. The selected curator will have a chance to create their own exhibitions and publications, work on social projects and be introduced to our established international network of contacts.

Finally, some of the money raised (7000PLN/€1500/£1300) will be allocated to helping cover the costs of Josh Plough’s educational development to improve the chances of the NGO creating effective change in the world. He is studying for a certificate in Cultural Policies to better learn how to implement social projects through culture-led urban regeneration, and to explore how the creative and cultural sectors function in public policies. He was one of two recipients of the 2022 Fondazione Fitzcarraldo scholarship to study for a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Cultural Policies at Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana. Josh was chosen because of his dedication towards the NGO and its proactive role in society. While the scholarship was generous it didn’t cover everything, so the donations will help.

• A quick note on the name: Ziemniaki i is Polish for Potatoes And. We’re the Potatoes And foundation because we wanted to emphasise the importance of down to earth approaches. Since the foundation explores the contemporary relevance of myth, folk practices and storytelling we chose the potato to best capture its character. Simultaneously humorous and intellectual the image and the story of the potato contains the story of our modern globalised world. Almost everyone has a story or memory related to potatoes, be they mundane or awesome. So they are the perfect things to gather around to start talking about our shared humanity.