Initiators
Organizer
Co-organizer
Ergo Hestia
Sopot-based ERGO Hestia Insurance Company was established in 1991. Thanks to its dynamic development, it has achieved the ranking of the largest insurance company among those established under the conditions of the free market economy in Poland. ERGO Hestia has been implementing initiatives at the intersection of culture and business for more than two decades. The company is one of the leading patrons of culture and the arts in the Polish market.
Between 2002 and 2021, twenty editions of the Hestia Artistic Journey competition were held at the initiative of ERGO Hestia, a project which was aimed at students in the final years of the country’s art schools at tertiary level. Among the winners was Ewa Juszkiewicz (2009). In 2014, the company established the Hestia Artistic Journey Foundation, dedicated to cultural projects.
ERGO Hestia, together with the APH Foundation and the Wisława Szymborska Foundation, has been organizing the Hestia Literary Journey competition since 2021, which is aimed at authors of youth and children’s literature (10-15 years old).
It is a strategic partner of the capital’s Museum of Modern Art and the Wisława Szymborska Award.
In addition, since 2001, together with the Znak publishing house, it has been awarding the Father Józef Tischner Prize. It has so far been awarded to Ryszard Kapuściński, Prof. Karol Modzelewski and Janina Ochojska, among others.
The company is also a patron of sports. Since 2000, it has remained the title sponsor of the Sopot Sailing Club, and since 2010 of the ERGO Arena, located at the junction of Gdańsk and Sopot.
The ERGO Hestia Group is a pioneer of the most innovative solutions in the insurance sector. For nearly 30 years, it has remained a reliable and trustworthy partner offering top-quality products and services. It provides financial protection to more than 3 million individual customers and several hundred thousand companies and businesses every year.
The ERGO Hestia Group consists of two insurance companies: STU ERGO Hestia SA and STU na Życie ERGO Hestia SA [Life Insurance ERGO Hestia SA] The Group’s subsidiaries offer insurance for individual customers in the areas of property and life cover, as well as for industry and small and medium-sized business. Insurance is offered under 4 brands: ERGO Hestia, MTU, mtu24.pl, as well as You Can Drive.
The main shareholder of the ERGO Hestia Group companies is the international insurance consortium ERGO International AG, owned by the leading reinsurer, Munich Re.
Sopot City
Sopot is a city where the encounter of culture and art with people and nature provides unique impressions and experiences. A city that stirs emotions, the senses and the intellect. An intimate place where everything is close by and the residents are naturally involved in the life of this seaside resort.
Time seems to flow differently here – as if the smell of summer constantly lingered in the air. The combination of the carefree, joyful contact with nature and the search for new experiences, so characteristic of summer, finds its expression in unique and diverse cultural projects and is conducive to artistic creativity.
Not surprisingly, there are 5 cultural institutions in Sopot, which keep alive the artistic traditions of the city. Sopot hosts such cultural events as “Sopot by the Book” [Literacki Sopot], the Sopot Classic music festival and the “Frames of Sopot” [W Ramach Sopotu] Photography Festival.
Not only during the events but throughout the year and at every step of the way you will encounter art, if only while admiring the numerous works of art in the urban space – sculptures, murals, photographs or the unique architecture of the local villas with their characteristic verandas, bay windows and turrets.
Sopot is an open, interesting and attractive city all year round.
Clean air, ever-present greenery, the boundless sea and the charm of intimate architecture are the distinguishing characteristics of Sopot. Culture feels at home in this space.
Hestia Artistic Journey Foundation
Hestia Artistic Journey Foundation conducts an extensive program of patronage of arts and culture on behalf of the Sopot-based insurance company ERGO Hestia SA. In the field of visual arts, we bring contemporary art to wide audiences and work in partnership with major institutions at home and abroad.
The Hestia’s Artistic Journey competition, which was held between 2002 and 2020, made it possible to introduce to the Polish public the profiles of 268 finalists, including the 54 winners. The Foundation also aims to promote the Polish artists awarded in the twenty editions of the Hestia Artistic Journey competition. Between 2002 and 2022, we organized more than 100 exhibitions nationwide.
Since 2021, the APH Foundation has also been running the Hestia Literary Journey competition for authors of classic literary forms, published in Poland, created in the Polish language and aimed at a young target audience.
The State Gallery of Art in Sopot
The State Gallery of Art [Państwowa Galeria Sztuki – PGS] in Sopot is a local government institution financed from the budget of the municipality of Sopot, with its headquarters at Plac Zdrojowy 2. The director of the gallery is Eulalia Domanowska.
Aiming to showcase the most important phenomena of Polish and foreign art and to reach the widest possible audience, the PGS cooperates with galleries and museum institutions at home and abroad. It has particularly close contacts with galleries in the Baltic States and the eastern neighbours (Ukraine, Belarus). The gallery co-organizes important cyclical events: “Within Sopot” Festival of Photography, Open Source Art Festival and also the Pomeranian Art Triennale. A new stage in the work of this institution will be the international competition of sculpture in the public space “Baltic Horizon” – a joint project of the City of Sopot, Ergo Hestia and the PGS.
The State Gallery conducts educational and publishing activities. It develops and publishes numerous catalogues that accompany exhibitions, collaborating with well-known graphic artists and designers, including Ryszard Bienert, Jacek Staniszewski and Maciej Bychowski. The gallery also has its own collection of contemporary art, which is made up primarily of collections of authors from the Gdansk community, which have been accumulating for more than forty years, as well as a rich library collection from the realms of art history, aesthetics, photography and architecture.
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