This morning at 1 PM, the Instituto Polaco de Cultura in Madrid presents the exhibition Refusal. Second Fracture by Polish photographer Rafał Milach, which will be open until September 27, 2026, in the Goya Room of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, as part of the PHotoESPAÑA 2026 program.
Curated by Katarzyna Sagatowska and in collaboration with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the exhibition brings together some of Milach’s most prominent projects to reflect on the construction of official narratives, forms of civic resistance, and the power of collective action in Eastern Europe. The opening will feature the presence of the artist.
The project takes as its starting point the figure of Xenia Degelko, a young Belarusian activist turned propaganda icon after the viral spread, in 2012, of a song that exalted the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. Her image became part of a symbolic gallery of ‘winners’ – exemplary workers and model figures – intended to reinforce the state’s narrative.
However, this construction began to crumble with small gestures of individual resistance and collapsed in 2020, when Degelko, along with millions of citizens, participated in protests against widely questioned elections. This turn reveals the fragility of the power representation devices and the capacity of collective action to subvert them.
In parallel, social mobilizations in Poland – in defense of women’s rights, the LGTBIQ+ community, minorities, and the rule of law – highlight the emergence of self-organizing networks that, in the face of crises such as the massive arrival of refugees after the invasion of Ukraine, have filled institutional gaps. These dynamics have led to transnational communities of solidarity, while also highlighting the vulnerability of protection systems against structural inequality.
Through series like The Winners and Seeding, along with murals, flags, videos, and materials from the Archive of Public Protests, the exhibition emphasizes the power of collective practices as forces capable of challenging the established political order.
Additionally, this afternoon at 6 PM, there will be a meeting and book signing with the artist at Librería La Fábrica (Verónica Street, 13) in Madrid.
