The contemporary Polish housing market is dominated by commercial offers. The public debate on housing reflects models of power and value systems, and essentially boils down to a discussion of whether housing is a right or a commodity.

In her presentation, Marta Baranowska will look at advertisements for housing estates (using the example of the primary market in Warsaw) through the prism of the values referred to by their senders, i.e., developers. In a study conducted in 2023 for her master's thesis and an article based on it, published in 2025, the author takes the position of an observer, trying to go beyond the simple opposition of right and commodity and the slogans repeated in the media: concrete jungle, patho-development, micro-apartment. She does not track down errors and inaccuracies, but rather reflects on how new places and new housing estates are described.

Her point of reference is the idea of home as a refuge, with the awareness that the image of the dream that a home represents is much more complex. It is influenced both by socio-economic conditions, including the context of transformation or the echoes of the pandemic closer to home, as well as by individual history. The complex visual and linguistic messages that make up advertising campaigns for housing estates create new places and new meanings, but also draw on trends and, on the other hand, on history. How do developers talk about housing estates and apartments? What do they use to build their narrative, what names do they create, what do they refer to? To what extent do they create reality, and to what extent do they refer to (real) needs?

The meeting is organized in cooperation with SARP Wrocław and the Fandom Foundation.