Photographer Janusz Biarda exhibit at the Milk Market

Pictured: Justyna Cwojdzinska, Polish Arts Festival organiser, Janusz Biarda, photographer, Maya Ulej, MM Cookies, Jacinta Khan, The George Boutique Hotel.

Jacinta Khan, George Boutique Hotel and Noirin Lynch, organiser of this year’s Polish Arts Festival, at the festival’s launch at the Limerick Milk Market gallery.

“Faces of the Milk Market” Exhibition by photographer Janusz Biarda is now on display every Saturday from October 3  to October 31 at the Limerick Milk Market Gallery, as part of the Polish Arts Festival 2015.

Photographer Janusz Biarda, who is of Polish origin, came to Limerick in 2005. The simplest description of his photographic interests is a passion for photographing people. In his work Janusz emphasizes the importance of showing human emotions, characters, beauty, catching important but very much elusive moments.

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Janusz Biarda’s photographic career is closely linked with Limerick where he found a support for his photographic investigations and research.

When studying at LCFE in 2012/2013 he was awarded two awards – Students Sports Photographer of 2012 Award and Smedias 2013 News Photographer of the Year. Over the past few years his photographs have been published in the Limerick Chronicle and Limerick Leader.

The Milk Market, from the very beginning, played an important role of a meeting place for the city. You could buy local produce there and meet wonderful, open minded people who make up the history of the place. The Milk Market turned out to be a natural and friendly space to catch moments in time when shopping or enjoying a cup of coffee. Hence the title of the exhibition “Faces of the Milk Market”.

The theme of Polish Arts Festival 2015 is “Transgressing dimensions. Lullabies and Keening Tradition.” The core of the Festival is an exhibition of paintings, drawing, sculpture, artistic photography, handcrafted jewellery of Polish Artists creating in Ireland.

The official launch this years Festival was on Friday October 2 at 6pm at the Limerick Milk Market. 

The Festival opens on Thursday October 15 2015 at 4 p.m. in the Hunt Museum, which will begin with a performance of Cantate Deo Choir, giving guests a little taste of Irish & Polish Lullabies. 

The Special Guest of the festival this year is Noirin Ni Riain, a spiritual singer, who will give a unique performance on Saturday October 24 in St. Michael’s Church on Denmark Street. 

A singing circle will be held on Friday, October 3 in Dolan’s Warehouse, that will showcase a link between Irish and Polish culture.

Noirin Lynch, an organiser of this year’s festival, spoke about the Dolan’s event: “We decided we would have a singing circle, and at that we would have a number of Irish and Polish singers who are bringing lullabies, laments and keening songs from their tradition, and then an open floor invitation for people to sing,” Noirin said.

“The title of the event is transgressing dimensions and there’s something about crossing the language dimension too, so we’re going to have songs in Irish, songs in English and songs in Polish.” she finished.

The line up for Polish Arts Festival 2015 includes exhibitions, musical concerts, singing sessions, lectures, arts & crafts workshops, a Food Fair and a Wonderland Room for children.

Justyna Cwojdzinska, Polish Arts Festival founder, spoke about the festival, now in its ninth year.

“We really want to share and integrate communities by bringing them together, to show how much we have in common and what we can do together, and to just enjoy the beauty of creating things.

“It has grown massively. The first was just a three-day event, where we were only showing art exhibitions, and then we were progressing into workshops and other events,” Justyna said.

The festival has seen huge success and publicity in its nine years, having been one of the Made in Limerick projects for Limerick City of Culture 2014.

“We were very proud that our hard work has been appreciated and that the Polish Arts Festival now, I’m not afraid to say, is a permanent landscape of Limerick city cultural life.” she finished.

Visit the Polish Arts Festival website here

Check out the Polish Arts Festival Facebook page here and Twitter here

Read more about Limerick festivals here

About the Polish Arts Festival:

The Polish Arts Festival exists on the agenda of the local events for the past 9 years and is proud to have been selected as one of the Made in Limerick Project by the Limerick City of Culture 2014. PAF has also been invited to work on Limerick 2020 European City of Culture.

Their mission statement is to promote Polish & Irish culture through the collaboration and exploration of the diverse heritage of both nations. We strive to find similarities between them and build strong common understanding based on intercultural exchange.