Tamara Kamińska

A Silesian University graduate with a Masters of Arts and Ethics in Philosophy, and a post-graduate diploma in Cultural Management from the University of Economics.

Since 2012, she worked as Deputy Director for the the Katowice City of Gardens Culture Institution (which organized events such as the JazzArt Festival, Sound Gardens Festival, Annual City Anniversary celebrations and was co-organiser of the OFF, Tauron New Music or RawaBlues Festivals).

In this function Tamara was responsible for all programming and oversight of diverse creative and cultural industry based activities of the institution and collaborating with national and international partners, including Adelaide, Mannheim, Kingston, Hannover, Sevilla, or Saint Etienne.

Initiator of an innovative NGO support programme that created new collaboration opportunities between the private and public sectors. As part of the “Mikrogranty” project, she built a model for supporting social cohesion on a Central and Eastern European scale through cultural activities. She organized a bid for the City of Katowice to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), thanks to which Katowice was designated as a City of Music in 2015. She was also responsible for the implementation and realization of the entire ‘Katowice – City of Music’ programme, which was detailed in the said application.

In 2015-2016, Tamara worked on the “Music sector development policy in Katowice. How to build a thriving, sustainable and prosperous music industry” report for the City of Katowice.

Tamara is also author of the successful WOMEX 2017 application, effectively bringing the world music festival and fair to the city and implementing and realizing the program. As a representative of Katowice, she was responsible for the bid to organize the UNESCO Creative Cities Network Annual Meeting in 2018 and its realisation after a subsequent successful application. In January 2018, she was elected a leader of the UCCN music subnetwork and member of the UCCN Steering Committee.

As of October 2018, she is the co-director of the Music Export Poland Office in Warsaw.

Since January 2019 she has been cooperating with the Polish National Commission for UNESCO as an independent expert on creative cities and author of the strategy for the implementation of SDGs in Polish creative cities.

Tamara has also co-authored and authored many awarding applications in sustainable urban development for partners from Indonesia, Palestine and Cape Verde.

In 2020, she started the research process and is currently preparing her PhD thesis at the Creative Economy Research Center in Warsaw, focusing on the issue of the impact of international mobility on the career development of artists and professionals in creative industries.