Hyperlocal Artistic Research: Baranów / Central Communication Port

Introduction

The concept of building a central airport in Poland dates back to the 1970s. During the decade of Edward Gierek’s rule, a period of numerous infrastructure investments aimed at raising the standard of living of citizens, some railway, road, and housing projects were completed, but many others remained unfinished.¹ The plan to build an airport remained just an idea.

In the following years, the idea was developed by enthusiasts—translator Bogusław Jankowski and biochemist Henryk Panusz, founders of the Transport Integration Society. This organization advocated for the construction of a central airport and developed plans to modernize the transport infrastructure.² Architect Jacek Damięcki also included a central airport as part of his “binary city” concept, which involved connecting Łódź and Warsaw.³ However, this project remained in the realm of plans, dreams, and speculation.

The concept was revisited in 2018 by the United Right government, which passed the Central Communication Port Act.⁴ The topic gained widespread media coverage, quickly becoming a source of social polarization. The ruling coalition at the time promoted the Central Communication Port (CPK), using the project to confirm its modernization ambitions, while the opposition questioned the legitimacy of the construction, criticizing it for megalomania and lack of economic justification. The dispute over the CPK became one of the key themes of the recent parliamentary and presidential campaigns.

It is worth noting that despite the initial differences of opinion on the details, there now seems to be a political consensus on the need to implement this investment. Design and administrative work is ongoing. In the publication Czasoprzestrzenna Podróż Krajoznawcza. Okolice Baranowa (A Spacetime Tour of the Baranów Area), Karol Trammer compiles press quotes that vividly comment on the change in Donald Tusk’s coalition’s position.⁵

The research process

We began our research and artistic project, titled Hyperlocal Artistic Research: Baranów/Central Transport Hub, in 2021 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. The team was interdepartmental and consisted of: Małgorzata Gurowska and Anna Siekierska (Faculty of Sculpture), Kuba Maria Mazurkiewicz and Piotr Puldzian Płucienniczak (Faculty of Artistic Research and Curatorial Studies), and Agata Szydłowska (Faculty of Design)—visual artists (sculpture, graphic arts), a sociologist, and a historian. We presented the results of our work, completed in 2025, as an exhibition titled Czas Przyszły Konceptualny. CPK i okolice (Conceptual Future Tense: The CPK and Its Environs) at the Pracownia Wschodnia gallery in Warsaw⁶ and in the previously mentioned publication Czasoprzestrzenna Podróż Krajoznawcza. Okolice Baranowa (A Spacetime Tour of the Baranów Area).

The aim of the study was to artistically document the municipality of Baranów as the site of the future construction of the CPK. It also provided an opportunity to reflect on the relationships between animate, inanimate, and speculative objects that emerge during the transformation of the Mazovian municipality into an international aviation hub. The methodology was inspired by non-anthropocentric humanities, including Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory, flat ontology, and speculative fabulations.

In initiating the study, we assumed that the CPK would affect both human and non-human inhabitants of the region, as well as habitats and entire ecosystems. Despite protests, residents are being relocated. A significant part of the local community opposes the investment, which will radically change the character of the region. The construction is controversial and a source of social conflict, which justified the need to examine it from an academic as well as cultural perspective in an interdisciplinary approach.

Logistics systems are crucial to the modern globalized economy. The transformation of the municipality of Baranów into an air transport hub is an unprecedented event in Polish history. The large-scale economic, logistical, and social engineering brings to mind modernist projects. The municipality of Baranów, with a population of just over five thousand, together with its surroundings, is to become a hub operating on a global scale—a “non-place” (Marc Augé) whose identity will undergo a thorough reconstruction, and whose existing networks and connections will be replaced by new ones.

The transformation of the municipality of Baranów into a logistics hub also gave us an opportunity to reflect on global transport infrastructure as a “hyperobject” (Timothy Morton)—an object invisible from the perspective of individual perception, but fully real and beyond human control. The research aim was to juxtapose the perspective of the hyperobject with the local, tangible, and real perspective of the Mazovian municipality. This activity was aimed at highlighting the tensions between what is “local” and what is dispersed, and showing the dense intertwining of human and non-human actors (Bruno Latour) operating on different scales and in different temporalities.

Field trips became our primary research tool. The team conducted several site visits, both on their own and with the participation of specialists. The perspective of the residents was brought closer to us by people associated with non-governmental organizations: local action groups, volunteer fire brigades, associations protesting against the CPK, as well as residents encountered during research walks. Karol Trammer, editor-in-chief of the bimonthly magazine Z biegiem szyn (Along the Rails) and a journalist specializing in railways, public transport, and mobility, showed us around the historical “investment ruins.” In turn, we conducted a site visit with an urban planner working for CPK, who told us about the planned future of one of the towns as we documented the current state of affairs.

The field research covered towns such as Baranów, Holendry Baranowskie, Jaktorów, Kaski, Radziejowice, and Szymanów, the rivers Pisia Gągolina and Pisia Tuczna, and the Bolimów Landscape Park, a remnant of the former primeval Mariański Forest. The fieldwork, carried out in the form of interdisciplinary outdoor sessions, facilitated in-depth discussions and the exchange of observations and conclusions. This stage was collective in nature. Next, the team moved on to researching archives and the press, as well as analyzing art related to the region. At this stage, the research practice took on an individual character, connecting directly with the creative process and influencing specific works carried out by individual members of the team.

Although the analyzed topics were intertwined, two main groups can be distinguished: issues related to nature and those related to infrastructure. In the area of nature, the analysis covered fauna and flora: both extinct species (such as aurochs, the last specimens of which lived in Jaktorów, as well as passenger pigeons) and those still inhabiting the area (frogs, spiders, moorhens, sedges, and bird cherries). The landscape structure also proved to be an important element, including rivers and water itself whose importance is emphasized by the names of nearby towns like Nowa Sucha (“New Dry”) and Żabia Wola (“Frog Will”), and forests that historically constituted a vast wilderness (Mariańska Primeval Forest, Międzyborów, and Podkowa Leśna).

In relation to nature, there is infrastructure and anthropogenic activities that change the natural order—from the borders that originally divided shared land to roads, bridges, power plants, and railways. Despite periodic obstacles, they are increasingly filling the map of the Baranów area. However, this seemingly omnipotent infrastructure can be fragile or merely potential; not every investment is completed, not every building survives. The intertwining of the natural world and infrastructure is particularly evident in Ruina (Ruin)—a sculptural installation that is, on the one hand, a representation of aurochs (a representative of an extinct species from Jaktorów) and, on the other, a bridge structure over the Pisa Gągolina River, unfinished due to the outbreak of World War II.

The research has also resulted in an extensive body of speculative work. A recurring theme in the works is the various interpretations of the acronym CPK. It is uncertain whether the Central Communication Port will be built—the investment remains at the planning and documentation stage. And even if it is built, will it retain its function as an airport? History knows the varying fates of similar projects. How long will it function as a transport hub? Will this function change, and if so, when? For what reason? In this project, we have attempted to answer these questions. Our speculations, whether they concern railways in every county or the Central Space Port, highlight the potential of large projects and their variability over time.

Summary

The future of CPK remains unknown. This research and artistic project was carried out within a specific time frame (2021–2025), and it is from this temporal and spatial perspective that we draw information and share our observations. Not only archival sources, but also oral accounts have provided us with knowledge about the past of the Baranów area. As part of the project, we have also managed to describe and record the current state of the debate on the construction of the airport in an artistic and synthetic form. It seems justified to continue research focusing on the CPK. Despite the few material traces of its existence so far, the project has become firmly rooted in the public consciousness. However, it does not have to be seen solely as a symbol of ambition and aspiration, or, conversely, of dispute and consternation. Instead, it can be treated as a key to understanding the character of a very specific, “local,” tangible, and real area and our—human—impact on it.