On 21 and 22 November, the prestigious Open Eyes Economy Summit is held in Kraków for the 8th time, focusing on social energy. Since 2021, the conference has been preceded by a cycle of artistic events organised by the Foundation for Economy and Public Administration, the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre and the GAP Art Agency.

The Open Eyes Art Festival 2023 starts on 7 November with the latest instalment of the Open Art exhibition presenting some of the most interesting designs by students at the Academy of Fine Arts, selected through an open competition and shown at the former hospital at 15 Kopernika Street. This year’s Open Eyes Art Festival focuses on Tadeusz Kantor. The Academy of Fine Arts Museum presents his drawings from the Italian collection of Stefania Piga, while Cricoteka hosts Cloakroom – another presentation held as part of a specially curated project tracing how Kantor’s life and work continue to inspire contemporary visual artists. The programme also includes exhibitions of works by Stelarc – Australian performance artist who undertakes artistic experiments with the human body using state-of-the-art medical technologies, robots and computers – as well as those by Andrzej Bednarczyk and Katarzyna Wójcicka from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. Sculptors Krystyna and Jerzy Nowakowski will be the protagonists of the 10th edition of the project Space for Art, popularising important artists and pedagogues from the academy. Towards the end of the conference, ICE Kraków screens Ewa Ewart’s latest documentary To the Last Drop (Grand Prix at the 6. BNP Paribas Green Film Festival in Kraków, 2023), with Łukasz Błażejewski’s performance art filling other spaces at the centre. The festival culminates with the exhibition Inspired by Picasso by Mariola Wawrzusiak and Darek Vasina at the Cervantes Institute.