The 17th edition of East of Culture – Different Sounds and the 11th held as part of the East of Culture programme offered audiences encounters with some of the most compelling musical phenomena at the crossroads of genres, traditions, and cultural influences. The festival is one of Poland’s most inspiring and discovery-driven music events, bringing world-class artists and exciting new discoveries to the very heart of Lublin. One of the festival’s key foundations is its broadly understood cross-genre approach. Constantly searching for “different sounds” across nearly every genre, movement, and stylistic current, this year’s programme featured the piano virtuoso Lubomyr Melnyk; Adrian Sherwood, founder of the legendary On-U Sound label; the psychedelic-dub supergroup African Head Charge; and a collaboration between Italian and Japanese legends of avant-garde jazz – RuinsZu. The programme also featured  the New York–based composer and guitar maestro Yonatan Gat, the energetic Mexican band Sonido Gallo Negro, the phenomenal Halina Rice with her dance-driven live act, and a dark, rock-oriented performance by Canadian artist Alex Henry Foster.

The festival line-up further included the Belgian female collective Ladr Ache, Italian electric harp virtuoso Kety Fusco, Georgian rock band Bedford Falls, Czech club-music specialist badfocus, and artists from Ukraine—SI Process and DZ’OB. Poland’s contemporary music scene was represented by Marek Pospieszalski’s octet in a special project featuring guest vocalists Anna Pašić and Tamara Kurkiewicz, the electronic pop duo Coals, the jazz-dance formation Tropical Soldiers in Paradise, and heavier sounds delivered by Ugory, Ciśnienie, Coals, the jazz-dance formation Tropical Soldiers in Paradise, and heavier sounds delivered by Ugory, Ciśnienie, and Mùlk.

Audiences with an interest in ambitious cinema were invited to Move East Movie—a film module presenting contemporary cinema from Eastern Europe, with a focus on socially sensitive and artistically distinctive works.

The festival’s literary programme featured nine publishing premieres, including translations of poetry and prose by contemporary authors from Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Estonia. Among them were book editions produced as part of the Literary Eastern Express (LEE) project, which complements and expands the long-running Wschodni Express publishing series.

The premieres: Czapeczka i wieloryb – Kateryna Babkina (LEE),
Charków 1938 – Ołeksandr Irwaneć (LEE)
Zawartość męskiej kieszeni – Ołeh Kocarew (LEE)
Najprzyjemniejsza chwila dnia – Piret Raud (Wschodni Express)
Krótka historia ukraińskiego feminizmu – Mykoła Jabczenko, Iwan Kypibida, Julija Wus (LEE)

Historia z wiedźmami – Kateryna Dysa ( Wschodni Express) , Borys Fiłonenko, Anton Reznik, Danył Sztanhejew „z mięty” (projekt LEE),  Autoportret w postaci pestki awokado – Julia Cimafiejewa (Wschodni Express) 

The programme was further enriched by photography exhibitions, including works by Grażyna Rutowska—an icon of 1970s photojournalism, a family exhibition of “scary” illustrations by Dominika Czerniak-Chojnacka, distinctive book-cover designs from the Wschodni Express series, and a visual documentation tracing Polish connections in the history of the legendary British record label On-U Sound.

We also has special activities for younger audiences. Children took part in a literary-sound journey through legends and historical curiosities, explored the atmospheric Duszne historie (Ghostly Stories) by Dominika Czerniak-Chojnacka, and discovered the expressive power of “scary sounds” during unique percussion workshops.