Etno/Bydgoszcz. Ethnographic Collection of the Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum in Bydgoszcz

The exhibition will for the first time present the Museum's ethnographic collection as a coherent whole, showing the richness of the folk culture of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship and the role of Bydgoszcz as an important centre for research, documentation and presentation of folklore and craft traditions. The objects on display will include works of folk and non-professional art, sculpture, painting, decorative art, textiles, embroidery, furnishings of former rural interiors, tools, and objects related to traditional crafts and the everyday life of village residents. The aim of the exhibition is to deepen knowledge of the cultural heritage of Kujawy, Pałuki, Krajna, Kociewie, the Chełmno Land, the Dobrzyń Land, the Tuchola Forests and Kashubia. A special place in the exhibition narrative will be held by Wanda Szkulmowska, a connoisseur and promoter of folk culture, whose activity and collaboration with the community of craftspeople had a significant influence on the growing interest in folk art and the preservation of the memory of regional traditions. The project will be complemented by educational activities and workshops led with the participation of folk artists, giving visitors direct contact with traditional craft techniques and with contemporary custodians of folk culture.

The Bydgoszcz Museum's collection… began in 1895, when the Historical Society of the Noteć District in Bydgoszcz received a collection of objects from Cameroon. Until the 1940s the collection was developed with a focus on non-European material. In the partition period, Bydgoszcz was an industrial city with a predominantly German population and was not a place favourable to the practice of folk traditions or the gathering of collections on this subject. Only in the interwar period were meetings on customs, preparations of traditional festive dishes, musical and theatre performances organised in the city on the Brda, and exhibitions presenting regional products made accessible. In the City Museum established on 5 August 1923, objects of non-European origin from the collection taken over from the Historical Society were displayed. Calls to take an interest in the local, folk cultural heritage were already being raised at that time. During the Second World War part of the collection was dispersed and lost. Several transfers were also made: in 1950 to the Museum of Folk Culture in Warsaw, in 1968 to the Museum of Ethnography in Toruń, and in 1974 to the District Museum in Toruń. The expansion of the Museum's ethnographic activity came in the 1970s through cooperation with its branches: the Museum of the Pałuki Land in Żnin, the Pałuki Museum Room in Kcynia, and the Museum of the Tuchola Forests in Tuchola, and in 1986 with the establishment of the Ethnography Department. Its first heads were Wiesława Wolna, followed by Maria Flink-Huryn.

Distinguished for the region Oskar Kolberg (1814-1890) mentioned Bydgoszcz (and Fordon) in the context of the Vistula Kuyavia and recorded songs and proverbs from those areas. From 1948, editor Anna Jachnina (1914-1996), author of the lyrics of the song “Siekiera, motyka”, worked at the Regional Station of Polish Radio in Bydgoszcz (now Radio PiK). She produced over 300 broadcasts devoted mainly to folk artists of Pomerania and Kuyavia and their art. Klara Prillowa (1907-1991), a creator, social activist and amateur ethnographer, was born in the city on the Brda. Kazimierz Walukiewicz (1922-1993) was an artist active locally. Teofil Ociepka (1891-1978), a non-professional artist who settled in Bydgoszcz, became an outstanding figure. A special and distinguished place in our city belongs to Wanda Szkulmowska (1931-2021), a connoisseur and promoter of folk culture, whose activity and collaboration with the community of craftspeople had a significant influence on the growing interest in folk art and the preservation of the memory of regional traditions.

Local initiatives Numerous and varied local initiatives express interest in traditions. Song and dance ensembles were formed, first ZPiT “Ziemia Bydgoska” (1958), and then ZPiT “Płomienie” (1980), which pass on folklore to successive generations and teach it…