In this edition of Holistic Heritage, we speak to three heritage practitioners in Poland’s southern city of Kraków and what makes this city so special in terms of creating and running cultural heritage projects.

Join hosts John Beauchamp and Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska, Head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków, as they speak to Katarzyna Sosenko, an art historian and Chair of the Sosenko Family Collection Foundation, Artur Wabik, mural artist, curator and Chair of the Comic Museum Foundation in Kraków, and Krzysztof Żwirski, a long-term collaborator with the Kraków Municipality and mastermind behind numerous projects promoting cultural heritage in the city and beyond.

What makes Kraków such a special city to create and undertake cultural heritage projects? How does the city compare in terms of grass-roots movements and bottom-up initiatives? How does Kraków fare in comparison to other urban centres in the region?

Find out more in the podcast – and also remember to download our latest report on the heritage-based third sector in the CEE region!

Over the past couple of years, the research team at the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków has been busy on creating a report on the non-governmental heritage sector in Central and Eastern Europe.

“Mapping of the Central and Eastern European Non-Governmental Heritage Sector: Report” was published in June 2025 and penned by researchers at the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków in collaboration with the Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation in Warsaw.

The report is the first of its kind, giving a comprehensive overview of the non-governmental heritage sector across ten countries in the region. The document – containing over 200 pages – highlights the situation of the sector as well as the challenges it faces.

As many as 35,000 heritage NGOs are operational across the CEE region, the report finds, although working conditions leave a lot to be desired: the research reveals that problems regarding cashflow, operational stability and burnout are the three hardest challenges the sector faces.

The report shows findings from ten countries: Belarus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

Three of the report’s authors: Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska (Head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków), Dr Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga (Deputy Head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków), and Maja Drabczyk (Chair of the Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation in Warsaw), join podcast host John Beauchamp to discuss the report’s findings.

You can download a copy of the report from the Kraków Heritage Hub’s website by going here.

This podcast was produced in the frame of and as an outcome of the European Heritage Hub pilot project co-funded by the European Union.

In this edition of Holistic Heritage, we are both in Kraków and further afield for the Małopolska Culture Heritage Days 2025, run by the Małopolska Cultural Institute, which this year won a European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Awardin the Citizens Engagement and Awareness-raising category.

In the episode, join John Beauchamp and head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub, Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska as they explore three places on the 2025 Heritage Days trail in Małopolska.

This year’s theme is “light”: we visit the cozy village of Zakrzów, some 30km from Kraków near Niepołomice. It is there we go to the Zagroda Apolonia, where a determined Elżbieta Graboś is rebuilding a traditional hut after a fire destroyed the roof in 2023.

At the zagroda (homestead) we also meet veterinarian and fantasy writer Radek Rak who authored a book commissioned by MIK for this 27th edition of the event.

In Kraków, right off the Main Market Square on we visit the Sperling tenement house on Sławkowska Street. There, we meet Christian and Véronique Leprette, the grandchildren of the former owners of the building, and Katarzyna Łomnicka, an art historian and curator of an exhibition on show at the house with paintings by Maria Sperling and Józef Jarema.

We also spend time at the Jerzmanowski Palace in Kraków’s Prokocim district.

Throughout the episode, we meet some of the Culture Heritage Days team from MIK, including: Joanna Nowostawska-Gyalókay, Małgorzata Hordyniec and Dominika Mietelska-Jarecka.

What is a post-museum? Is museum participation really all that it’s geared up to be? How can museums – seen as gatekeepers of knowledge – really open up their collections and programming to the public? Or maybe they shouldn’t?

“In the book I show that museums are overusing the word participation, that they're inviting people to do collaborate and contribute while keeping their authoritarian position,” says Jagodzińska.

“But even if that is so, it is wonderful that more and more museums are deciding to open up, breaking from their traditional way of functioning, to leave their buildings and go beyond the museum walls,” she continues, sitting in the luscious grounds of the Royal Łazienki Museum in the centre of Warsaw.

The book was published by Routledge in 2025.

This podcast was produced in the frame of and as an outcome of the European Heritage Hub pilot project co-funded by the European Union.

The latest mapping of the heritage NGO sector in Central and Eastern Europe, conducted by the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków (to be published in June 2025), has shown that heritage practitioners and others working in the sector often suffer from stress and burnout. This is of course a wider trend across society.

How can we slow down and find our balance? Can heritage be the answer?

We ask the Cieszyn-based Serfenta Association, whose Craft Revitalisation Model earned them a European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award in 2024, how to take things slow and whether traditional basket weaving is the answer for stressed-out urbanites in need of rest.

John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska speak to Paulina Adamska, Łucja Cieślar and Urszula Szwed from the Serfenta Association at the headquarters in Cieszyn.

“When the hands are working, the head is resting,” says Łucja Cieślar, one of the Serfenta team. During the podcast, she rustles various types of reeds and straw for your ASMR listening pleasure!

This podcast was produced in the frame of and as an outcome of the European Heritage Hub pilot project co-funded by the European Union.

Over recent decades, a lot of industry in the region of Silesia has shut down. While some plants and factories have been demolished, others have stood the test of time and are still standing, albeit having been adapted to completely new functions, such as museums, art galleries, restaurants, cafes, hotels, and as headquarters of various companies.

Usually these buildings were in need of change, being adapted to serve current needs and possibilities, yet leaving some authenticity behind. Perhaps only in this way these buildings could have been saved… Join us as we discover Silesia and the potential for adaptation and reuse of the region’s industrial heritage.

In this episode we visit:

• Queen Louise Adit and Guido Mine at the Coal Mining Museum in Zabrze, Poland (European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Grand Prix award winner in 2019)
• Dolní Oblast Vítkovice complex in Ostrava, Czechia
• PLATO Contemporary Art Gallery in Ostrava, Czechia
• Landek Park Mining Museum in Ostrava, Czechia
• Zinc Rolling Mill in Świętochłowice, Poland (owned and managed by the Foundation for the Protection of Silesian Industrial Heritage, represented by Dr Piotr Gerber, Heritage Champion awarded in 2024)

This podcast was produced in the frame of and as an outcome of the European Heritage Hub pilot project co-funded by the European Union.

In this inaugural episode of Heritage Hour, we speak to leading experts on the preservation of Jewish heritage in Poland.

We hear about the synagogue in Orla, in eastern Poland, and its submission to the 7 Most Endangered Programme run by Europa Nostra. What is special about the synagogue in Orla and why was it important to include it in the 7ME programme? Are there any other synagogues eligible? What is the scale of Jewish heritage sites that still need securing, protecting and restoring? What is the public awareness of Jewish heritage today? The Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków’s Katarzyna Jagodzińska and John Beauchamp are in the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews to meet:

Jolanta Gumula – Deputy Director for Programming, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Piotr Ostrowski – Publisher, Virtual Shtetl online project, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Piotr Puchta – CEO, Foundation for Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland
Krzysztof Bielawski – Foundation for Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland
Aleksandra Janus – President, Zapomniane Foundation

Heritage Hour is the latest podcast series to come from the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.

Each episode takes an important topic concerning heritage in our part of Europe and brings it to the table to discuss with a range of experts.

As the title suggests, the podcast is an hour-long discussion, which allows us to get to the heart of each matter, as well as giving a voice to the many heritage practitioners we will be meeting on the way!

This podcast was produced in the frame of and as an outcome of the European Heritage Hub pilot project co-funded by the European Union.

The bare concrete structure of a decommissioned power plant, part of the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok in north-eastern Poland, is the home to an exhibition by Augustas Serapinas, a Vilnius-based artist who is putting a spotlight on the plight of regional wooden architecture.

For the exhibition, Serapinas has deconstructed three wooden buildings, which have all been decommissioned, from the Podlasie region as well as from his native Lithuania. The title of the exhibition is Pine, spruce and aspen, a nod to the native species of the region’s extensive forests.

Hosted by John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska

Out of the wooden beams, Serapinas has created a kind of labyrinth, and we can walk in and out of the houses, and the wooden zigzag structures weave a stark contrast to the concrete hall which the exhibition is housed in.

In this episode, we explore the plight of wooden vernacular architecture in the Podlasie region and beyond. Join us as we are in Białystok to see the exhibition for ourselves, and we are joined on the line by artist Augustas Serapinas and Matthew Post, a Podlasie-based curator originally from California who stands behind the idea for the exhibition.

The universal message will remain topical even after the exhibition closes. Despite its captivating aesthetics we read it as a gesture of activism, calling for the saving of this ephemeral heritage.

During the podcast we mention the Koźliki open air museum which we visited as part of the Ukraine Heritage Spotlight series: you can find out more here.

This podcast was produced in the frame of and as an outcome of the European Heritage Hub pilot project co-funded by the European Union.