By Warsaw’s relationship with food is moving into the centre of an urban conversation. The 18th edition of the Warsaw Under Construction festival opens on Sunday, 30 August, with a programme devoted to food sovereignty, local agriculture and the links between the capital and the surrounding Mazovian countryside.
Organised by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the festival will run until 27 September. Rather than presenting food only as a matter of consumption, it treats farming, distribution, markets and everyday meals as elements of urban planning and civic life. The programme combines exhibitions, discussions, guided visits, workshops, walks, river trips and community events across Warsaw and the wider region. ([muzea.waw.pl](https://muzea.waw.pl/en/museums/modern-art-museum/exhibitions/warszawa-w-budowie-18-suwerenna-i-najedzona/?utm_source=openai))
A harvest gathering outside the museum
The opening event will take place from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the MOST Cooperative Farm on Gwintowa Street in the Siekierki area. Admission is free. Visitors will be able to tour the farm, meet the community involved in its upkeep and share refreshments prepared from this year’s harvest.
The opening will also include two site-specific art projects. Artist Jan Sajdak will present a sculptural group titled Blades of Grass, while artist Gosia Kępa will introduce a land-art installation called Soil Profile and lead a workshop on making soil profiles. The afternoon will close with a performance by Urzeczeni, a musical project connected with the traditional culture of the Urzecze area south of Warsaw. ([artmuseum.pl](https://artmuseum.pl/en/events/warsaw-under-construction-18th-harvest-festival-at-the-cooperative-farm-in-most?utm_source=openai))
The choice of a working cooperative farm as the festival’s starting point is deliberate. It places cultivation, soil and seasonal production in the foreground, before the programme moves into museums, markets, shops, orchards and wholesale distribution sites. In this format, the city is presented not as an isolated consumer centre but as part of a larger food landscape.
From the Vistula valley to the city market
One of the festival’s recurring themes is the historical connection between Warsaw and the agricultural areas around it. The organisers point to the Urzecze microregion, whose villages and riverine landscapes have supplied the capital with vegetables, fruit, honey, dairy products and fish for generations.
The programme will take visitors to several places that form part of the capital’s present-day food map, including orchards in Żoliborz, the Egipska market in Saska Kępa, the Zbiory food shop in Mokotów and the Bronisze wholesale market west of Warsaw. Other events will focus on the relationship between food, labour, technology and cooperative organisation.
For residents, the festival offers a practical way to look at questions that can otherwise remain abstract. Where does food sold in the city come from? Which parts of the supply chain are visible to consumers, and which remain hidden? What role can small farms, neighbourhood shops and cooperatives play alongside large-scale distribution?
Food as an urban-planning issue
The organisers describe food sovereignty as an increasingly important element of contemporary city strategies. The concept does not imply that Warsaw could produce everything it consumes. Instead, it draws attention to the resilience of local networks, the preservation of agricultural land and the capacity of communities to understand and strengthen the systems on which daily life depends.
This approach gives the festival an environmental dimension without reducing the subject to climate messaging. Soil, water, biodiversity, land use and transport all influence how food reaches the city. At the same time, local food systems are connected to culture: recipes, seasonal rituals, forms of work and relationships between urban residents and rural producers.
Polish Radio’s coverage of the festival described the opening harvest gathering as a reminder of the long relationship between Warsaw, the river, the land and the people who work it. The station also highlighted the festival’s decision to move beyond a single exhibition space and use the city and Mazovia as its wider setting. ([polskieradio.pl](https://www.polskieradio.pl/podcasty/folkowy-poranek-dwojki/18-festiwal-warszawa-w-budowie-i-podroz-na-urzecze?utm_source=openai))
A month of public exploration
After the opening, the programme will continue with public discussions, walks, visits and workshops. A 3 September conversation at the museum will examine how Warsaw might combine local resources, agricultural infrastructure, older forms of organisation and contemporary technologies when thinking about its food future. Later events will look at cooperatives, local shops and the role of food distribution in building more resilient cities.
The festival’s strength lies in its constructive scale. It does not present a single solution or claim that local production can replace every wider supply chain. Instead, it invites residents to examine the food system as a shared civic environment: something shaped by farms, markets, roads, kitchens, institutions and consumer choices.
By opening with a harvest celebration at an operating urban farm, Warsaw Under Construction 18 makes that argument tangible. For one month, food becomes a way to read the capital’s geography, its social relationships and its remaining connections to the cultivated landscapes beyond the city.
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