MA Joanna Polak

Specialist in promotion, event organization, producer, cultural activity animator, and lecturer. She graduated in Czech Philology from the University of Wrocław, completed a Two-Year Postgraduate Program in Journalism and Public Relations at the University of Wrocław, and Postgraduate Studies in Cultural Institution Management at the Wrocław University of Economics.

For over a dozen years, she carried out organizational and promotional activities in the Promotion and Events Office of the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music (now the Center for Promotion and Events), where in the last years of her work she served as Head. For several years, she has been Head of the Information, Promotion, and Education Department at the Centre for Culture and Art in Wrocław.

Closely connected with Wrocław’s musical environment, she has taken part in the organization of hundreds of nationwide and international events, collaborating with Polish and foreign cultural institutions as well as NGOs. She has cooperated, among others, with: the National Forum of Music, the Polish Association of Voice Pedagogues, the European Voice Teachers Association (EVTA), the International Jazz on the Odra Foundation, and the “Krzyżowa” Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe, with which she has been organizing the Summer Guitar Festival in Krzyżowa for several years.

She was a board member of the Coolturalny Wrocław Artistic Association and the International Jazz on the Odra Foundation. She is the founder and president of the SO WHAT? Foundation, within which she conducts cultural activities, promoting artists and networking cultural entities in the region.

In 2024, at the Congress of Culture of Wrocław and Lower Silesia, she carried out the “Project Exchange” table initiative, which was one of four winning ideas included in the official program of this event.

For several years, she has been teaching the course “Promotion and Marketing of Cultural Goods,” striving to equip students with competences and skills useful for their future professional activity and for navigating the cultural job market.