In Kurdish the word "hiwa" means hope. The exhibition "Highly Unlikely but not Impossible" showcases the works of Hiwa K - an Iraqi Kurd who found political asylum in Europe around 20 years ago, and today is considered one of the leading contemporary artists in the world. His unique artistic tactics are based on creating the form using of the practices of everyday life, childhood memories, upbringing and family anecdotes. His oeuvre — a combination of autobiographical elements with things he overhears and fictional stories — sheds a new light on matters such as refugees, functioning in another culture, as well as the geopolitical conditions of human existence.

"Rechowicz/Smaga. Circle" is an exhibition of over one hundred photographic objects created together by Hanna Rechowicz and Jan Smaga that evoke the history of a house at Lekarska Street in Warsaw where she has lived for many years. A work in process, the house was shaped from the 1950s by the artist couple of Gabriel and Hanna Rechowicz; following Gabriel’s death, Hanna has been taking care of and working on it herself. It is a place with a rich past — for decades a meeting point for Warsaw’s art community: architects, fine artists, filmmakers.

The exhibition at the Zachęta Project Room will show paintings — a cycle of works on canvas and activities carried out directly on the wall. I would like my paintings hanging on the walls to blend in with the gallery space. I also intend to check to what extent this space can be disturbed by transferring painting from canvas directly to the walls.

"Maps under the sky of Rio de Janeiro" is a presentation of the artistic output of Anna Bella Geiger (b. 1933), a pioneer of Brazilian art. In the historical context of modern art in Brazil, Geiger, alongside Hélio Oticica, Lygia Clark, and Lygia Pape, is one of Rio de Janeiro’s top artists who have re-established the connection between the expressionist tradition with neo-concretism (neoconcretismo). The exhibition reflects the diversity of the artist’s interests: from anthropology to astronomy, from indigenous cultures and alchemy to concrete poetry and Brazilian music, from modern utopias and dystopias to game theory. Geiger’s works from the 1970s – drawings, prints, and video projections – serve as the exhibition’s starting point and form its core.

Rebellion of the Deaf is a performance and film by one of the most interesting visual artists of the middle generation, an associate professor at the Chair of Intermedia of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. The eponymous Rebellion of the Deaf refers to the protest of deaf students from the American Gallaudet University, who in 1988 fought for the appointment of the first deaf rector in history. The project was inspired by the story of a Dutch artist, a daughter of Chinese immigrants, born in Europe. When she was born, social services advised her parents to raise her without using their own language, in order to better assimilate her. The parents, who did not know Dutch, brought up their daughter practically without speaking to her: they used only about 50 of the simplest words at home.

Graphics are the most numerous and at the same time the least known works in the Zachęta collection. The individual objects included in the exhibitions have never allowed the broader audiences to look at the whole of the collection in a broader way. Therefore, we wanted to recall a genre that occupied such an important place on the artistic scene a few decades ago, and over the last 30 years has been gradually marginalised. The 2,100 works in our collection are a very diverse set in terms of style, quality and form; with particularly outstanding works from the 1960s. We noticed their consistency, high artistic level, as well as combination of traditional techniques with the search for new formal solutions, so characteristic of graphic arts.