Zofia Małkowicz-Daszkowska
Zarządzanie w Kulturze, Tom 19, Numer 4, 2018, s. 379 - 392
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843976ZK.18.022.10516Institutional revisions and (un)likely scenarios. The Polish “self-diagnostic” theatre.
The paper discusses the phenomenon of theatre performances as well as the curator practices focussed on the organisational/production/administrative dimension of a theatre which is reserved for theatre employees or experts with specialist knowledge and thus usually unavailable to a wide audience. We will treat the selected practices as a tool shaping the future of the institution (and the people employed in it). The most important questions which we will try to answer include: To whom and what do these practices give the floor? On what problems do they shed light? Are they a self-diagnostic tool, and if so, to what extent? How do they deal with the subject of the future? The first part is devoted to the phenomenon of institutional critique. It examines its specific nature and development in the activities of Polish directors and curators. In the second part, we show the most salient examples of the Polish “self-diagnostic” theatre. In part three, we are deliberating on the four problematic areas in which theatre institutions are to operate (hierarchisation, precarity of working conditions, capitalist model of “production,” and illusions that support the status quo) and the possible scenarios indicated by the theatre performances and curator practices described in the article.