What does it mean for an exhibition to refuse a finished conclusion and instead exist as a living, breathing constellation of shared human bonds? Taking over the raw, industrial cavern of a former printing house at the Institute of Creative Industries in Warsaw, Tilda Swinton – Ongoing completely rejects the predictable, ego-driven celebrity retrospective. Co-produced by Amsterdam’s Eye Filmmuseum, the landmark project brings together cinema, fine art photography, couture, and performance—framing the iconic Scottish artist not as a distant screen siren, but as an active, shifting vessel for collective creativity.
Curated around eight profound artistic friendships—Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, Joanna Hogg, Derek Jarman, Jim Jarmusch, Olivier Saillard, Tim Walker, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul—the exhibition functions as a polyphonic conversation across medium and memory. Inside the newly unveiled South Hall, designed by Polish architect Maciej Siuda, raw concrete and industrial iron collide with deeply personal artifacts. Visitors move between Joanna Hogg’s immersive multimedia reconstruction of their shared 1980s London apartment, Tim Walker’s intimate portraiture, and the actual draped Oscar-ceremony gown worn for Michael Clayton.
At the emotional core of the project sits the indelible ghost of visionary director Derek Jarman, whose early radical film sets served as the primordial soup for Swinton’s fluid, anti-establishment approach to performance. The installation dissolves traditional gallery boundaries, allowing soundscapes, moving-image fragments, and tactile textile archives to overlap without hierarchy.