Poles on Poles is a series of projects looking at Poland through the lens of American poetry. 

It is an open secret among American poets that Krakow is a literary mecca, and Poland has long been recognized for its rich poetic history. Poles On Poles works with poetry and with the historically Polish neighborhood of Greenpoint to explore this relationship between the United States and Poland; the project honors cross cultural artistic exchanges and celebrates, with humor, the possibility of interactions outside of linguistic constraints.

03_Po Prostu Miłosz

Poles On Poles: Po Prostu Miłosz is the final in the three-part Poles on Poles series. For this iteration, vvitalny once again partnered with some of the most recognized American poets – Jane Hirshfield, Bob Holman & Robert Pinsky – to develop video postcards inspired by the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, Czesław Miłosz. These video postcards form the core of an interactive, multimedia, web game where players cycle through excerpts of these video postcards and are prompted to create their own original content in response.

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02_In Pieces

Poles on Poles: In Pieces is a mixed-media installation that builds on the original, recreating the experience of street-as-democratic-space-for-engagement through sound, video, and imagery. It seeks to deconstruct gentrification in an attempt to deepen our understanding of process, and our role in said process. This installation was the inspiration for a group show in October 2011 at the Brooklyn Artists Gym in Gowanus, co-curated by vvitalny and the gallery’s own Meredith Alcarese. It is the second in the Poles on Poles series.

01_In Posters

Poles on Poles: In Posters, the first in the Poles on Poles series, was installed in April of 2010 on Manhattan Ave, between Bedford & Greenpoint Aves, in Brooklyn. The installation included twenty-nine images in which the natural, the digital and the poetic interacted. Each featured a new, Polish-themed poem by some of the greatest living American poets. Jack Gilbert, Robert Hass, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Yusef Komunyakaa and C.K. Williams kindly contributed their work to Poles On Poles. All works were presented in both English and Polish. The posters were designed to be temporary, and passersby were encouraged to “steal” them for themselves.