Love narratives: how we tell stories about love and what remains when they end

Discussion
03.09.2026, 18:00

Love narratives: how we tell stories about love and what remains when they end - Event_Miłosne narracje-7
Love narratives will explore how we tell stories about love – before it begins, while we are in it, and after it ends. What remains when a shared history falls apart, and can we build our own from its fragments? What stories do we tell ourselves when we fall in love? How do gestures, glances, messages, photographs, and shared moments come together to form the story we call love? And what happens to that story when a single piece of information changes the meaning of everything that came before?

Around these questions, Aga Kozak and Agata Romaniuk will discuss love, betrayal, and the ways we tell our own stories.

The inspiration for the conversation is Karla Hiraldo Voleau’s exhibition Another Love Story. The project began when the artist discovered that the man she was in a relationship with had been seeing someone else at the same time. Hundreds of photographs that had once documented their intimacy began to look like evidence. Voleau returned to these images, reenacted scenes from their relationship, and created her own version of the story.

Together, we will consider what happens when we retell a story. Can words, photographs, or art help us reclaim something that was lost along with trust? Does putting pain into words change its meaning? Who has the right to tell this story, and what tools do they use? And perhaps every love story is, from the very beginning, a kind of two-voice autofiction – a story that the two people involved are constantly rewriting as they live it?

Agata Romaniuk, a sociologist, reporter, and author of books about love and relationships (Z miłości? To współczuję and Krótko i Szczęśliwe. Historie późnych miłości, as well as the essay Najgorsze randki świata i kilka udanych), and Aga Kozak, a journalist (author of a profile of Esther Perel published in PISMO), narrative specialist, and personal development coach, will explore what culture tells us about love and what we only learn through our own experiences.

In the conversation, we will draw on contemporary texts and perspectives on love and dating. We will turn to Sophie Calle and her attempt to take a breakup letter apart, Esther Perel and her questions about the meaning of betrayal, desire, and monogamy, as well as love stories found in literature, art, and popular culture, alongside the perspectives of Mona Chollet and Tomasz Szlendak. We will also talk about our ideas of “true” love and why it can be so difficult to accept that another person may be a co-author of our life, but can never be a co-author of our memory.

Agata Romaniuk – writer, reporter, and sociologist with a PhD from the Polish Academy of Sciences. She is an expert in behavioral economics and works on designing and modeling behavior for companies and institutions. She is the president of the Institute of Behavioral Economics. She is the author of the reportage collections Z miłości? To współczuję. Opowieści z Omanu and Krótko i szczęśliwie. Historie późnych miłości. Her novel Proste równoległe was published in 2022, followed in 2026 by Dina, Dina. She contributes to Duży Format, Przekrój, and Pismo. She is also a children’s author and the creator of the bestselling detective series Kocia Szajka, as well as other books for children.

Aga Kozak – journalist, author, coach, trainer, and teacher of the Good Life. She is Poland’s first art coach. She studied at, among others, Middlesex University in London and New York University. She worked on the Krakow Photomonth Festival and at ZPAF i S-ka Gallery. As a journalist, she focuses on the culture of pleasure. She has written for Gazeta Wyborcza, PISMO, ZNAK, and GQ. She is the co-author, with Paweł Goźliński, of Sztuka męskości. Jak nie być chujem, among other books. She conducted the only Polish interview with Anthony Bourdain and has also spoken with Brené Brown and Esther Perel. She is one of Elle magazine’s 26 Women of the Year 2026, and Forbes Women included her on its list of the 100 most influential sex educators in Poland.

3 September (Thursday), 18:00

Event accompanying the exhibition Another Love Story by Karla Hiraldo Voleau.

Karla Hiraldo Voleau
Another Love Story
01.07 – 06.09.2026
Curator: Anne Bourrassé

Gallery opening hours:
Wed-Fri: 14-19
Sat-Sun: 12-19

Partners: Pro Helvetia
Media partners: French Institute in Warsaw
Strategic partners: White Stone Development, Fort Mokotów

 

 

The event will take place at the Institute of Photography Fort and will be held in Polish.

A recording of the event will be available on IFF’s channels, with a Polish Sign Language interpretation.