The collections of the National Museum in Gdańsk and other museums in our region include many extraordinary items with unusual shapes and long-forgotten purposes, such as a cup made of European bison horn, a tin cannon with a single wheel, a small iron carriage, metal and wooden signs in the shape of barrels or arrows, as well as silver, tin and wooden cups, mugs and boxes. Many of them are engraved with the names of people who are now forgotten and various symbols showing, for example, ox heads, cogwheels, compasses and many other images. The oldest objects date back to the Middle Ages, the newest from the end of the 19th century.

These objects were used by members of associations that we call guilds. They were communities of people in the same profession, providing them with security and stability of work, as well as mutual assistance in case of problems in running these small enterprises. The functions and importance of guilds, however, went far beyond the professional sphere and included many everyday matters, such as care for the sick, orphans and widows, and participation in religious communities, expressed daily by common prayer.

We decided to show many preserved items of heritage in our museum collections and other museums in the region, related to the activities of guilds in the cities of former Royal Prussia, at a museum exhibition. We wanted to learn their stories and, through them, the stories of the people who used them. Together with a team of museum workers, historians, art historians and heritage conservators, we set off on a long journey visiting museums, historic churches, archives and libraries. We learned the story of a spoon maker who was allowed to sell his spoons in front of Artus Court in Gdańsk only due to his advanced age, a painter-inventor who other Gdańsk painters threatened with beatings and the destruction of his property, the mother of a deceased bricklayer who donated a watering can to the guild in exchange for her son’s burial, a goldsmith who, thanks to the king’s support, could ignore the complaints of his colleagues and a furrier who painted the interiors of local churches on behalf of a Toruń pastor. We also knocked on the doors of another Toruń furrier and a baker from Chojnice. Plus we wondered where the astronomer Hevelius got the money for his expensive research and where Arend Dickmann, the victor of the Battle of Oliwa, learned to sail.

These seemingly simple stories reveal a much more complex world that is intriguing also to present-day people. They make us think about how society and the economy function and the actual tools and obstacles to development. Just like former members of guilds or people excluded from them, we also support each other today. We try to ensure the safety of our families and friends, but on the other hand, we are confronted with inequality, monopolies and various limitations that hinder our development.

In an accompanying two-volume publication and some of the side events to the Communities of Work and Faith. Cities of Royal Prussia exhibition, we present the results of our several years of work. We reveal history, but we also encourage reflection on whether the world described by the presented heritage items and documents is sometimes not unlike our own and whether we do not have to face the same everyday challenges that the heroes of the stories we told did.

Curator: Franciszek Skibiński
Substantive and expert collaboration: Alicja Andrzejewska-Zając, Anna Baranowska-Fietkiewicz, Michalina Duda, Maria Hotel, Katarzyna Kubicka, Michał Kurkowski, Lech Łopuski, Bartłomiej Łyczak, Anna Soborska-Zielińska, Janina Strehlau, Alicja Sumowska, Jacek Tylicki, Anna Zielińska
Coordinator: Gabriela Brdej
Exhibition design: Biuro Kreacja – Natalia Fierka, Marta Pruszyńska, Dorota Terlecka
Visual identity and graphic design: Studio Goodnews – Waldemar Koralewski, Justyna Radziej, Paulina Wojdyna
Edition and proofreading of texts in Polish: Tadeusz Dąbrowski, Agnieszka Dziewulska, Adam Majewski
Translation: Communication Doctors
Edition and proofreading of texts in English: Communication Doctors
Conservation: Milan Charytoniuk, Joanna Didik, Anna Górna, Eugeniusz Panto, Cátia Viegas Wesołowska
Loans: Kalina Krasowska, Marta Wołyńska
Coordinator of museum transports: Anna Wojdat-Zielińska
Collaboration: Daniel Starzyński
Coordinator of installation: Paweł Powirski
Realisation of exhibition arrangement: Mirosław Makowski, Piotr Pietraszek, Krzysztof Ruciński, Alfred Szkudlarek, MADOX
Promotion and communication: Klaudia Ficak
Education: Noemi Etush, Kamila Glazer

The objects are presented at the exhibition courtesy of the following institutions:

State Archives in Gdańsk, State Archives in Toruń, Provincial Public Library – Copernicus Library in Toruń, University Library in Wrocław, Archaeological Museum in Gdańsk, Archaeological and Historical Museum in Elbląg, Blessed Archbishop A. J. Nowowiejski Diocesan Museum in Płock, J. Rydzkowski Historical and Ethnographic Museum in Chojnice, National Museum in Poznań, National Museum in Warsaw, District Museum in Toruń, Museum in Lębork, Historical Monument Museum ‘Frombork – Cathedral Complex’, Museum of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Museum of the Chełmno Land, National Maritime Museum in Gdańsk, PAN Gdańsk Library, PAN Kórnik Library

and the owners of private collections:

Dariusz Brzozowski, Jerzy Wiśniewski’s heirs.