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.

How does a building work? What are the first impressions it makes? What do we see in subsequent visits? What is the impact of the building on the employees? And finally, what is it as a declaration of a company? Going beyond the questions asked in the abovementioned study, one may ask about the meaning of the senses, in experiencing, in feeling architecture, and analyse buildings from the perspective of the body.

On a Journey is a second exhibition realised by the Zachęta National Gallery of Art as part of the project Art Gallery at Chopin Airport. The works on display are from Zachęta’s current collection, built since the 1990s and comprising mainly works by contemporary Polish artists exhibited at the Zachęta or projects co-produced by the gallery.

The exhibition concentrates only on the problem of the world of animals, exploring artists' diverse takes on this problem and the range of ways of visualizing it in art. The point of entry for the exhibition is the desire to overcome the dogmatic anthropocentrism that places the human in the centre of the world as a privileged species of the highest ontological status. This viewpoint continues to dominate in contemporary science, and as a consequence we witness the exclusion of other species/phenomena of life on earth from the sphere of scientific knowledge in terms of their subjectivity or rights.          

This exhibition has been organised within the frame of the 4th edition of the biennial competition Views 2009 — The Deutsche Bank Foundation Award for the most interesting figures on the young Polish art scene. The exhibition is a presentation of the seven artists nominated for the award: artists whose work over the course of the past two years has earned the particular attention of critics and curators.