Three former shelters for three days – we summarize Yuri Biley’s exhibition

Three locations normally inaccessible, located beneath Grunwaldzki Square, three days of exhibition, nine unique works by Yuriy Biley, and over 1,300 visitors—these are the numbers behind the exhibition “SHELTERS, COVERS, SLITS – It’s somewhere further away. Don’t worry. Now closer, even closer.”

Between November 14 and 16, the underground spaces hidden beneath Grunwaldzki Square regained their voice for a moment. Three former shelters, normally closed and absent from the city’s everyday consciousness, opened to the public, becoming the venue for an exhibition organized by the Wrocław Institute of Culture.

The focal point of the event was the shelter under the tenement house at 87 Maria Skłodowska-Curie Street, where the artist lives. Biley presented his vision of adapting this place for common use—as a space of care, sharing, and safety.

The two other locations, the remains of the shelter infrastructure in Kacprzak Park and the shelter under the Faculty of Health Sciences of the Piastów Śląskich Medical University at 5 Bartla Street, introduced viewers to the obscure geography of the city’s hidden spots.

The exhibition was both a review of Biley’s decade of work in Poland and a commentary on contemporary socio-political events. The installations, collages, and videos presented formed a coherent, yet multi-layered narrative directly referring to the experiences of war and emigration.

The event was organized as part of the international Magic Carpets platform, which is a network of 17 European artist residencies supporting young artists and curators and involving local communities in the artistic life of cities. The Wrocław Institute of Culture has been part of it since 2022. The partners of the event were the Ładne Historie Foundation and the Piastów Śląskich Medical University in Wrocław.