AFTER THE PALACE: Resonance 2026 — video mapping contest in the Lenin...

A steelworks courtyard in Nowa Huta is the canvas. Building Z of the New Administrative Centre once held the offices of the Lenin Steelworks, the works that raised the district around it, block by block. The call for artists goes out worldwide. Entry is free, and the deadline is 30 October.

The contest is called AFTER THE PALACE: Resonance 2026, organised by unLoc at the University of National Education Commission in Kraków. It asks for video mapping, animation and site-specific projection designed for one specific courtyard. That is a loaded subject. Nowa Huta was planned as a model workers' city under state socialism, and its architecture of power is exactly what entrants are asked to re-read.

Three cash awards sit on the table: PLN 10,000, PLN 6,000 and PLN 3,000. That is PLN 19,000 in total, funded by the university unit that runs the contest. Selected works project on the building for real. The public presentation happens on 23 November 2026, as part of the accompanying programme of the 34th Audio Art Festival. Artists, animators, motion designers and creative collectives from anywhere in the world can enter, and there is no fee and no geographic filter, which is rare for a contest with this much money attached.

Each entry needs an online form and a link to download the finished work. The regulations live on the contest page, alongside a building matrix with 2D plans and a 3D model of the projection surface, so the work can be composed before anyone sets foot in Kraków. The 3D file is the rare part. Mapping is a craft of exact surfaces, and they have given the surface away for free.

Full details and the application form: unloc.uken.krakow.pl/en/after-the-palace-resonance-video-mapping-contest

Nowa Huta was built as a statement about the future. Fifty years later, artists are asked to reply, in light, on the same walls. The city itself is the subject.

■ Filed from The Commons: the civic wing of the city.