Report: “The (Non-)Consent to Boundary Violations. An overview of a survey on abuse and discrimination in the community of the Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw”
Saturday, 30. 9. 2023 at 14.00 / Vetrinj mansion, big hall
Presented by Professor Mikołaj Lewicki (University of Warsaw)
With the great help of the Keep Festive initiative, StopTrik Festival invites this presentation to support animation community in one of its most difficult conversations. We hope to explore the tools and methods which may serve to define concerns vital for the safety and well-being of all in the community, to diagnose problems we’re facing as students, teachers, viewers, curators, producers…. Above all, we hope to find an appropriate, respectful, safe, and efficient way of formulating recommendations that can lead to actual change.
Keep Festive is a collective of festivals and companies that aim to create safer spaces and prevent all kinds of inappropriate behaviour at different events by offering a certain set of rules and training for organizers, volunteers and attendees.
Introduction to the report (pp.1-9):
“This extensive publication is a result of a sociological survey of the Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw (ADA) and its branch in Białystok in 2021/2022. (…) The study was conducted at the request of the Academy’s leadership by a research team from the Faculty of Sociology at the University of Warsaw under the supervision of Prof. Julia Kubisa and Prof. Mikołaj Lewicki.
The report was intended to provide an in-depth diagnosis of the phenomena of abuse, discrimination and personal boundary violations in the didactic process at the Academy; to identify the scale of inappropriate actions, indicate and explain their causes at the level of individuals and organizational culture; and, lastly, to give recommendations for change.
(…) The direct impulse for action was a callout by actor Anna Paliga in March 2021, in which she described extreme transgressions committed at the Łódź Film School, and the subsequent wave of testimonies by alumni of all theater and film schools in Poland. (…)
The report we are presenting is a pioneering one. Never before has a similar document been prepared (…) We decided to take a look at ourselves from the most uncomfortable point of view, the one that had not been willingly assumed by any theater school, and to talk about it publicly. I am convinced that such transparency will empower our community. We are hiding nothing; instead, we are giving over the narrative about our community into independent researchers’ hands and starting a public debate. (…)”
Report available here https://akademia.at.edu.pl/raport-niezgoda-na-przekraczanie-granic/?fbclid=IwAR1UK999oWcB-8P7EtQRq03dvfng8pqNldoE_6rO2XJ_q4ypGirTg8B6Y0A
Mikołaj Lewicki (Assoc. Prof.)
works at the Department of Sociology, University of Warsaw; his main areas of interest concern economic sociology, organizational culture, cultural institutions and cultural practices. Recently published books: “The Future cannot Begin. Polish Transformation Discourses according to Theories of Time and Theories of Modernization”, “The Social Life of Mortgage” and co-authored “Culture on Peripheries” . He is also the founder of New Community Foundation focusing on de-polarization and dialogue among conflicting communities.
Research team:
mgr Witold Chyło / mgr Marta Gospodarczyk / dr Justyna Kościńska / dr hab. Julia Kubisa, prof. UW / dr hab. Mikołaj Lewicki / dr Adam Ostolski / mgr Alicja Palęcka / dr Wojciech Rafałowski / mgr Katarzyna Rakowska / mgr Katarzyna Słaby / mgr Kamil Trepka / mgr Feliks Tuszko