About MIK

The Mazovia Institute of Culture

The Mazovia Institute of Culture (MIK)
Organizational Unit of the Mazovia Provincial Government

The Mazovia Institute of Culture is located in Warsaw.
The organizer of the Mazovia Institute of Culture is the Mazovia Provincial Government
www.mazovia.pl

The Mazovia Institute of Culture 2017 – Power Point

Mazovia Province

Mazovia Province – a unit of Poland’s administrative division – it is the largest province in terms of area and population, located in central and eastern Poland. It covers an area of ​​35 500 km² and has a population of 5,320,000 inhabitants. The seat of the province’s government is Warsaw.
Aside from the Mazovia Institute of Culture, several cultural institutions report to the Mazovia Provincial Government including museums, theaters, art centers, and ensembles.

The strategy for the development of culture in Mazovia

The document Strategy of development of culture in Mazovia Province for the years 2015-2020 defines the mission of the cultural policy of the Mazovia Provincial Government through the postulate: Culture includes everyone.
In carrying out this mission, the Mazovia Institute of Culture operates both in Warsaw and the entire province. Since 2000, when we started our activities, we were present in hundreds of towns in Mazovia.

The Mazovia Institute of Culture – mission

The Mazovia Institute of Culture has set itself the goal of finding new forms of work in the field of culture, creating inspiring models of work in culture and their dissemination, also through the implementation of projects in cooperation with partners from the region. Hence our mission: We create models.

The core of our activity can be summed up by the words: inspiration – cooperation – creativity. We inspire actors with whom we cooperate to identify goals together.
Through cooperation, we implement the planned measures. In the course of cooperation, we gradually pass on tasks to local partners so that the projects inspired by us are implemented through own creativity.
The Mazovia Institute of Culture operates in many fields of art, implements short- and long-term events, giving them various executive forms.

The Mazovia Institute of Culture implements:

• one-time projects
• projects lasting several days
• projects lasting several months
• all-year-round projects
• long-term projects

The Mazovia Institute of Culture endorses:

• festivals
• concert series
• interdisciplinary projects
• education
• artistic and cultural animation
• the permanent operation of art galleries.

The spectrum of activities of the Mazovia Institute of Culture includes:

• fine arts
• theater and Dance Theater
• literature
• classical music and popular music
• cinematography
• cultural heritage
• education

Employees and financing

The funds for the activities of the Mazovia Institute of Culture derive from grants of the Mazovia Provincial Government, from the co-financing of projects by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, awarded as a result of the competition for the implementation of specific tasks, with the contribution of local organizers and sponsors.

The Mazovia Institute of Culture employs 76 people, of which 50 are technical staff, and 26 are people working in the Department of Technology, Department of Organization, Department of Administration and Investment, and the Department of Accounting.

The Head of the Mazovia Institute of Culture is located in the center of Warsaw, in a historic, Neo-Renaissance palace, which in the years 2017-2018 will be expanded and modernized.
At the moment we have an Auditorium that can seat up to 200 people with performers, equipped with a modern sound system, lighting, air-conditioning and dressing room, as well as two smaller rooms for meetings and conferences.

Mazovia the region and Warsaw the city: the duality of presence

The Mazovia Institute of Culture works in two highly differentiated areas of the civilizational and cultural landscape.

In Mazovia, without Warsaw, we are present mainly in small towns, sometimes even villages. There, we are part of the local social context, we are looking for partners, institutions, and individuals, who need us and who will continue the projects started together once we leave. In Warsaw, however, a center which hosts the majority of the most prestigious cultural events, the Mazovia Institute of Culture has strong competition and here we have to fight for the attention of the public. The most important instrument is, of course, the quality of the offer, which we present to recipients, but we also use advertising. We successfully mark our presence in the urban space by means of outdoor advertising – posters, city lights, large-format advertising, static and dynamic. We have a difficult task because we want our information to be more than good publicity, so that they bring an artistic message to the city landscape.

Volunteering

At the Mazovia Institute of Culture, we also cooperate with volunteers who help us achieve a modern educational model based on cooperation. Our program is addressed to all age groups, however, the largest one is made up of students, for whom volunteering is a way of gaining experience and professional competencies. Volunteering at MIK enables the participation and co-creation of a variety of artistic and cultural events.

Prospects – new directions of activity

1. How to arrange urban space so that it stimulates social energy?
We will commence work in 2017 on a pilot project for a socially degraded urban area. It will aim to inspire the process of urban planning in contact with the locals. Within the framework of this project, we will organize a conference with the participation of urban workers, architects, psychologists, cultural theorists, and artists. We are interested to cooperate in this field.

2. Mazovia Academy of Heritage
What is the relationship between the cultural identity of Mazovia and the regional urban solutions? Through this project, we will investigate the relationship between culture and the physical environment transformed by civilization, and try to identify common characteristics of the region. Taking into account the strong associations of architects and artists operating in Mazovia with European culture, we are interested in international cooperation in this field.

3. Re-opening cinemas in Mazovia
Changes in technology and the expectations of the cinematographic market have caused a massive collapse of cinemas. Mazovia has one of the lowest rates per capita in the country in terms of access to the cinema. The support of the public institutions and the modernization of cinemas, which can be called a “civilizational leap”, have resulted in a reversal of this trend. The cinema audience is currently growing in Mazovia. The Mazovia Institute of Culture intends to be involved in these activities.

International cooperation

The Mazovia Institute of Culture was an organizer or co-organizer of international events. In some of them, it participated under the former name – Mazovia Culture and Arts Center (Mazowieckie Centrum Kultury i Sztuki).

Selected international projects:

2007 | Festival of Children’s Choirs and Youth of the Visegrad Group Countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, 5-7 October 2007). During the Festival, Hungary was represented by the ensemble Angelica Leánykar. During the final concert, all the ensembles performed the song Cantemus, which was composed by the Hungarian composer Layoš Bardoš.
2007-2009 | The International Cultural Program Crosspoints involving partner regions Saxony-Anhalt, Plovdiv, and Mazovia.
2008-2010 | Towards a modern museum – an international conference and a series of seminars, workshops and study visits aimed at the exchange of experience in the management of modern museums.
2010 | Victory Icons – an exhibition of Polish art and the avant-garde of the 80s in Berlin.
2011 | Congress ShortCut Europe Warsaw for entertainers, educators, artists and social activists. Organized in connection with the participation of the Mazovia Institute of Culture in the European Network of Cultural Centers.
2011-2012 | Open museum/The anthropology of everyday life – Polish-German workshops and symposium.