Bio
She received her diploma from the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts in 1984. In 2005, presenting a typographic installation of Sarah Cane's drama "Crave" and Witold Szalonek's "1+1+1+1+1", she defended her doctoral thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice and received her habilitation from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 2012 ("Air" to a poem by e.e. cummings and music by Stanislaw Bromboszcz. She currently serves as dean of the Faculty of New Media Arts, working as a professor at the Polish-Japanese Institute of Information Technology in Warsaw.
She is the organizer and curator of numerous exhibitions, workshops, lectures and international conferences on graphic design and visual communication (2011 STGU award for "Responsible graphic design", in 2017 nomination for the organization of the world typographic congress ATypI in Warsaw, for the Best Design Event of the Year in Poland); 2012 STGU award for "Ala has a pen" workshop, 2013-2018 MOTYF - International Student Festival of Moving Typography, 2014 Think(in)visual communication, 2016 Laughter, 2018 Thresholds. She is an honorary ambassador of congresses in Poland.
She has been a guest lecturer at foreign universities, including: Aalto University, Helsinki; MMU Manchester; Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (USA); Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (USA); and MIT, MassArt, Boston (USA). She is also the author of articles on graphic design in the "2+3D" magazine, and the editor of publications dedicated to typography: "Lapikon", "Fajrant" (awarded the Type Directors Club 2012 Certificate), and "Gyubal Wahazar" (TDC Certificate of Excellence 2018 and PTWK distinction). She is the co-author of the book "Pass it on. Design, teaching, life. Krzysztof Lenk in conversation with Ewa Satalecka".
For many years, she has created set designs for theatrical performances and music concerts. She has collaborated with, among others, the Korez Theatre, designing sets and costumes for "Ballad of Lovers and Murderers" based on Nick Cave, "Cholonek" based on Janosch (a play awarded the Golden Mask), and "COMETA, or this cruel 20th century based on Jaromír Nohavica" (Golden Mask for set design). For the "Ateneum" Theatre of Actors and Puppets in Katowice, she designed for "Theseus and Ariadne" (Golden Mask for set design). For the Stanisław Wyspiański Silesian Theatre, she designed set designs for plays directed by R. Talarczyk, namely "Underground" and "The Fifth Corner of the World" based on Kazimierz Kutz, as well as "The Soldier's Tale" based on Igor Stravinsky. She has designed typographic multimedia installations for stage essays by T. Sławek and B. Mizerski, stage concerts of the Silesian Quartet, and the film series "Szopienice". She has collaborated with the Polish Theatre in Bielsko-Biała and the "Gry i Ludzie" Theatre in Katowice. She is the author of typographic theatre installations "Crave" by Sarah Kane and "Air" by E.E. Cummings with music by Stanisław Bromboszcz, shown at the Korez Theatre and on the NOSPR stage in Katowice, as well as the installation "Meduza", presented at the Museum of Photography in Kraków. She has designed the graphic identity for premiere performances for the Entertainment Theatre in Chorzów, music festivals of NOSPR, the Silesian Quartet, and the Academy of Music in Katowice. She is Poland's representative at the International ATypI Forum.
Her works concerning moving typography in theatrical space were presented in 2008 at the international symposium "Liquid Page" at Tate Britain in London and form part of the international collection and exhibition Moving Type Exhibition presented at the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz in 2011, and currently travelling across Europe. Documentation of the "Air" installation was also presented at the Pinselstrich vs. Megapixel Medien-/Kunst aus Warschau exhibition in Dresden in 2013.
Projects
IF – Social Design for Sustainable Cities: A project by European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) Warsaw and the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technologies (PJAIT). EUNIC – European Union National Institutes for Culture – is Europe’s network of national cultural institutes and organisations, with 36 members from all EU Member States. The conference was supported by the European Commission Representation in Poland, the City of Warsaw, as well as by several other Polish and international organisations.
