In 2024, Jörg Scheller met Rycharski in his home town of Sierpc and interviewed him. The artist, who is openly gay and an activist for queer rights, but also a devout Christian, lives and works in rural Poland amidst the electorate of Poland’s national conservative PiS party. Through long-term cooperation with the local population, especially farmers, Rycharski wants to bring about lasting change in society instead of relying on short-breathed agonistic populism or media outrage. In his February column in the Stuttgarter Zeitung, Jörg Scheller presented Rycharski’s approach as a promising example of peacebuilding through art.
