From 2022, Centrala Berlin is under the artistic and executive directorship of
Berenika Partum
Founder
Krzysztof Gutfranski
Founder
Berenika Partum is a Cultural Manager and Curator based in Berlin. Berenika gained professional experience in various cultural institutions in Berlin: Polish Cultural Institute, Akademie der Künste, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart among others. She has a Master’s degree in art history and history from Freie Universität Berlin as also a Master’s degree in Cultural and Media Management from the University of Music and Theatre in Hamburg. She worked several years for a project that promotes the development of ideas that strengthen national film industries in Central and Eastern Europe in a structural form (SOFA – School of Film Advancement). She curated different exhibitions with the focus on eastern and central Europe e.g.: Piotr Blajerski, The End, Literaturhaus Lettrétage, 2015, Festival “Polenbegeisterungswelle – Cultural Topographies of Polish Berlin” at Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin 2017 and with Karolina Majewska-Güde “Ewa Partum. My Gallery is an Idea. Galeria Adres Archive“at Galeria Studio, Warsaw/Poland, 2019, Pavel Brăila: ‘Casa Mare’, Centrala Space, Birmingham, 2021. She is the Program Director of the ARTUM Foundation ewa partum museum in Poland (www.artumfoundation.com) and also a Board Member of Agit Polska – Polish-German Initiative for Cooperation (www.agitpolska.de).
E-mail: berenika@centralaberlin.com
Krzysztof Gutfrański is a curator and writer whose contextual research practice focuses on alternative education, theory of value, and non-functional thinking in the era of technological change. His recent research for Documenta Institute explored the far-right's co-option of contemporary art in CEE. In 2021, he was awarded the "Weltoffenes Berlin" fellowship offered by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, with Slavs & Tatars as a host. He was also a fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude from 2019-2020, where he curated a one-month festival for the institution's 30th anniversary. He has participated in numerous research residencies and curatorial endeavors funded by institutions such as Getty, Creative Europe, and the Polish Institute. Krzysztof's practice also involves extensive editorial research focused on exploring media in the era of information overload. He was editor-in-chief of ALTERNATIVA - International Contemporary Visual Arts Festival/Wyspa Institute of Arts in Gdańsk from 2010-2015 and editor-in-chief of Obieg magazine published by CCA Ujazdowski, Warsaw from 2016-2020.