PROJECTS
Our projects are the heart of Luminaris Art.
This section showcases our ongoing and completed projects across Music, Theater, Visual Arts, Education, and Kabaret, reflecting our commitment to artistic expression, collaboration, and cultural exploration.
Each project represents a unique creative journey, bringing together artists, ideas, and communities through diverse forms of art and performance.
Explore our work and discover how creativity takes shape through meaningful and inspiring projects.
MUSIC
Music speaks beyond borders and cultural barriers. Through our musical events, we aim to introduce Polish creativity to younger generations on the international stage, engaging children and youth from the Polish diaspora.
Operating within a multimedia, Western cultural environment, young members of the diaspora gain opportunities to express their complex identities through multilingual and creative expression. These artistic experiments foster intercultural dialogue and build communities that transcend traditional divisions. Music becomes a tool for integration, mutual understanding, and the creation of shared cultural heritage.
THEATER
Showcasing Polish diaspora theater is a core part of our work. The Foundation highlights the richness and diversity of Polish theatrical artistry beyond the country’s borders. We promote plays written specifically for émigré Polish stages, as well as adaptations and translations of foreign works, produced by Polish-Canadian directors in Poland and abroad.
Our mission is to preserve and popularize the
achievements of Polish diaspora theater, support international creative collaboration, and strengthen the presence of Polish culture in the global artistic landscape. Through events, educational projects, and documentation, we create a space that:
- Strengthens intergenerational connections
- Fosters intercultural understanding
- Emphasizes the transnational dimension of Polish theatrical art
Polish diaspora theater tells a living story of identity, creativity, and dialogue-and the Foundation is a conscious and responsible narrator of this narrative
VISUAL ARTS
JACEK MAGRYS
Jacek Magrys (born March 28, 1958, in Tarnów) is a painter whose work has been shaped by multiple countries and
cultures. From an early age, he received awards in national art competitions, including those organized by Szymon
Kobyliński.
Even in his early creative period, Magrys demonstrated exceptional artistic sensitivity and an original approach to nature. In 1988, he emigrated to Greece, where he created
series of works that were well-received by the artistic community. Since 1991, he has lived in Canada, continuing to develop his painting. His Toronto exhibition, held at venues including the Woodbine racetrack, exemplified a creative fusion of European painting traditions with the experience of emigration.
Magrys specializes in equine and landscape painting, primarily working in pastel and oil. His works are distinguished by subtle expression, masterful use of color, and the ability to capture the dynamics and character of nature. Magrys’s art combines refined sensitivity with emotional depth, offering viewers an artistic narrative of the world’s beauty and the personal experience of emigration
EDUCATION
Third Culture Children
This interdisciplinary project is aimed at both children and adults, addressing the phenomenon of “third culture” experienced by children of the Polish diaspora and multicultural families. Third culture children, also known as global nomads, spend a significant part of their developmental years in a culture different from that of their parents’ homeland. As a result, they experience a layered identity, being emotionally connected to multiple cultures simultaneously without fully identifying with any single one.
Functioning between several worlds, these children carry the values of both their parents’ country of origin and the country in which they are growing up.
They cannot-and should not-sacrifice one part of their cultural identity for another. We believe that Polish diaspora children, who have often been seen merely as carriers of their parents’ knowledge and identity, have the right to cultural self-determination and the creation of their own cultural worlds.
- Strengthens intergenerational connections
- Fosters intercultural understanding
- Emphasizes the transnational dimension of
Polish theatrical art
KABARET
"POD BAŃKA" - 30 YEARS OF POLISH CULTURE ON WORLD STAGES
For over three decades, Kabaret “Pod Banka,” founded in Toronto, has become one of the most recognized and innovative initiatives of the Polish diaspora. Combining theatrical professionalism, musical sensitivity, and original satire, the ensemble has performed internationally, including at the official Gala Concert of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
