Cosmopolitan Poland has been at the centre of cosmopolitan life for more than a thousand years, at the crossroads of central Europe. A thousand years of coexistence, cooperation, rivalry and conflict, autonomy, integration and assimilation – all of which has left traces of physical materials, pottery, textiles, recipes, raw agricultural ingredients, architectural styles; a myriad of colours and textures brought together from the four corners of Asia Minor, the Middle East, Europe and the Nordic regions, carried first on foot, then on horseback, then piled in carriages and later on trains, eventually in automobiles and trucks and now also in planes which criss-cross the heart of Europe.

Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts