dr Małgorzata Bakalarz-Duverger

I joined the team at the Warsaw Observatory of Culture as Deputy Director in December 2022. My educational background is in art history and sociology, and I received my PhD in Social Sciences from the New School for Social Research in New York. My dissertation focused on collective memory, decentralisation, the meanders of the development of the civil society, and their role in understanding multicultural material heritage in Poland.

Throughout my career, I worked on projects blending education, culture and applied sociology for several institutions, including NGOs, universities and museums and galleries. For the past 15 years, I lived in New York where I worked at the Center for Jewish History as Director of Academic Programmes and as a lecturer at Parsons School of Design, among other places. Regarding my work experience in Poland, I greatly value my time spent at the Centre for Civic Education and the Foundation for Education for Democracy.

I am befriending Warsaw anew after my long-time absence, and I am invariably enthralled by the city’s radical contrasts and architectural co-existence, which keep reminding me that Warsaw is a city-(sensitive) witness. I am still convinced that I will live in the Palace of Culture when I grow up!