1410

Some images live in books.
Others demand space.

For 1410, The Making conceived and delivered an exhibition built around one of the most powerful images in Polish cultural memory — Jan Matejko’s “Battle of Grunwald.”

At its centre stood a unique object.
Not a reproduction.
A singular, monumental copy created directly from the original housed at the National Museum in Warsaw.

"1410" Exhibition in Teutonic Castle, Swiecie [2024]

Painter Ireneusz Rolewski spent six years recreating the work — fragment by fragment, layer by layer — producing the only existing copy of the painting in this scale and technique. The canvas was divided into eleven elements, meticulously painted and later reassembled into a single body nearly ten metres wide and over four and a half metres high.

Thirty-five thousand hand-tied knots. Cut one by one. Made invisible.

"1410" Exhibition in Teutonic Castle, Swiecie [2024]

The Making was responsible for the project from concept to execution — shaping the curatorial idea, overseeing technical and logistical complexity, and managing the transport, assembly, and presentation of a work that resists standard exhibition conditions. Art logistics here was not a service. It was part of the narrative.

"1410" Exhibition in Teutonic Castle, Swiecie [2024]

The original historic frame — used for sixty years by Matejko’s painting — was restored, expanded, and reintroduced, allowing the work to reclaim its physical presence in space.

The exhibition placed Rolewski’s copy in dialogue with contemporary interpretations by Wyspiański, Rusicka, and Łódź Kaliska, opening the image to new readings and tensions. History met reinterpretation. Monument met critique.

"1410" Exhibition in Teutonic Castle, Swiecie [2024]

Hosted at the Teutonic Castle in Świecie, 1410 became a temporary exhibition experienced by over 20,000 visitors between May and August 2024.

"1410" Exhibition in Teutonic Castle, Swiecie [2024]

This was not an exhibition about the past.

It was an encounter with scale, effort, and memory — rebuilt to be experienced again.

"1410" Exhibition in Teutonic Castle, Swiecie [2024]