Home / About Us / Our Team

Miranda Zarzycka

Manager of Research and Art Projects

miranda.zarzycka@wok.art.pl

(any pronouns)

I am a researcher and an avid walker. At WOK, I run research and artistic projects, talk to people and write articles.

I graduated from the College of Interdisciplinary Individual Studies in the Humanities at the University of Warsaw in applied sociology and social anthropology, where I wrote my master’s thesis on queer Warsaw. I have also researched the topics of tenancy in Polish cities, gentrification and support practices for people who arrived in Warsaw after 24 February 2022.

My contribution to WOK is quite a handful of experience, a host of methodological reflections, and my curiosity about our city’s nooks and crannies. I am also involved in research on cultural education and readership, as well as the “In Warsaw” project, in which we walk around the capital city and talk to artists with a migration or refugee background. In 2025, I started collaborating with Łucja Staszkiewicz on her project about art studios, and I also represent WOK in the open network of culture workers “Reagujemy” (We React) and the “Współmyślenia” (Co-Thinking) project.

I live in an apartment building in the Stary Mokotów district. Together with my neighbours, I am trying to grow vegetables and flowers in the garden, and we have been quite successful in this field.

By this author

sort: /

“To read or not to read? How to support young adults reading in the midst of a digital revolution”. The release of the Warsaw Observatory of Culture’s Guide

The guide can be explored linearly or selectively – like a map or a dictionary, which can be returned to as needed. From the PISA 2000 report and Joanna Dobkowska’s article featured in the publication, we learn that “reading for pleasure has a greater impact on children's future than their economic status.” New technologies, enormous social pressure, ubiquitous short forms and instant gratification – these constitute the revolutionary nature of changes in the lives and development of children and young adults. The digital revolution, although increasingly transparent, should not disappear from the radar of contemporary culture researchers. It is through the lens of the digital revolution that we see scenarios that will help books find their place in a world of constant change.

Otwieramy nabór do programu mentoringowego „Pracow(a)nie artystyczne”

Warszawskie Obserwatorium Kultury ogłasza nabór do udziału w programie mentoringowym w ramach projektu Pracow(a)nie artystyczne, czyli jak można pracować twórczo w Warszawie. Czekamy na Twoje zgłoszenie do 5 maja 10:00!

Art(Work) Studio, or how to work creatively in Warsaw in diverse ways

Every year, over 200 people graduate from art schools in Warsaw. To continue their artistic practice, they need a place to work, however, access to spaces and tools that would enable creative work is limited. New spaces to create art are becoming increasingly rare in Warsaw. That is why we at the Warsaw Observatory of Culture (WOK) are looking for solutions and new ways of thinking about the role of art studios–and artistic work–in the urban environment. In collaboration with the Puszka Foundation, we are running research and mentoring activities aimed at developing new ways of thinking about artists' studios and models of creative work, bringing together stakeholders and providing young artists with the knowledge they need to practice their art without restraints in Warsaw.

Artistic and Research Projects

CONVERSATION: Artist Mothers. How to change the world?

Interview with Miranda Zarzycka and Aleksandra Wiechowska interview; Agnieszka Strzeżek, Sonia Jaszczyńska and Agata Klepka, the founders of the group and the idea of home residencies combined with tutoring for artists who are mothers to young children.

On the WOK.radar

How to conduct research through images? Movement and visuality of the city. Register for the seminar at the Warsaw Observatory of Culture!

What if you left a quiet room and conducted an interview in a bustling city environment? At the Warsaw Observatory of Culture (WOK), we are offering a three-day methodological seminar, during which we will embrace not only words, but also the movement, image and ambience of the city. They are an integral part of the research material. We will hold workshops with practitioners, and then try our hand at a walking-with-video research in Warsaw. The call is open, feel free to fill out the form!

REPORT: To read or not to read? How to support young adults reading in the midst of a digital revolution

Who should answer this question? There are many people who read and promote reading, and multiple approaches to the problem. At the Warsaw Observatory of Culture (WOK), we have created a platform for sharing cross-sectoral knowledge and reflections on reading, in order to capture the transdisciplinary sense of reading promotion.

On the WOK.radar

CONVERSATION: Hearing the voice of poetry. An interview with Joanna Mueller

Female voice amplifiers versus dad jokes. Under the leadership of Joanna Mueller, we open our space to poetry and invite all readers to discover new poetic voices and search for works that are not chameleons. A conversation with the poet Joanna Mueller is the last in a series of interviews with experts in the Reader Education research project conducted by the Warsaw Observatory of Culture.

On the WOK.radar

ARTICLE: To my eye, it’s reading!

Can you live radically with your head in the clouds? In the age of the digital revolution, it is a thorn in the side of literary purists and a one-night-read, so to speak, if we betray the logic of progress, profit and consumption. The answer is complex. As an invited panellist at the Eye on the World (L'œil du monde) conference at the National Library on 22 March, I spoke about the implications of WOK research and what reading education could look like in the age of the digital revolution.

On the WOK.radar

WOK at a conference on children’s and young adult literature

What does 'literacy' or 'reading' mean in the digital revolution time? And what could it signify for different generations of readers, and what are the implications? Miranda Zarzycka presented preliminary research findings on literacy education, conducted by us at WOK, at a conference organized by the Wytwórnia publishing and the polish National Library.

Warsaw reading education in the age of digital revolution

Warsaw reading education in the age of digital revolution

How is the digital revolution changing reading practices? Which diegetic worlds are young people eager to visit and which are no longer accessible to them? The resting education research project, carried out in collaboration with the Culture Bureau of the capital city of Warsaw, provides an opportunity to take a closer look at these questions and juxtapose them with an interdisciplinary reflection on the reading competences of today's readers.

Artistic and Research Projects

We invited artists with a migration or refugee experience to walk around Warsaw, to places that are important to them. Their stories, anecdotes and digressions, opinions and emotions are an attempt to answer the question again: how else could it be In Warsaw? Now ahead is a three-day methodological seminar.

Artistic and Research Projects

Cultural Education

The study of cultural education in Warsaw is a study of the city itself: its radically changing community; its shifts and uncertainties in the face of global challenges; as well as its local conditions and their impact on the lives of Warsaw’s residents. WOK presents the report Cultural Education in Research and Action, which concludes the second phase of our study on cultural education practices in Warsaw.

Artistic and Research Projects

Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin

Aleksandra Tarka

Kacper Solecki