Polish Pavilion at the International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

Commissioner: Agnieszka Pindera
Curator: Ewa Chomicka, Jola Woszczenko

Liquid Tongues is an audio-video installation by Bogna Burska in collaboration with Daniel Kotowski, in which the Chór w Ruchu [Choir in Motion], featuring both hearing and Deaf people, does interpretations of whale communication codes and songs – both in phonic English and international sign language (IS). The project seeks alternative modes of communication, inspired by more-then-human life.

The axis of this story will be tales of loss and reconstruction – from the rebirth of whale cultures to contemporary attempts to restore marginalised languages and narratives of communication systems. The installation will operate on many levels: image (cinematography by Magda Mosiewicz and Bogna Burska), sound (composed by Aleksandra Gryka) and physical experience, through the acoustic waves corresponding to the impressions of the vocalisations and echolocations of right whales. The collective choreography of the bodies of the choir is inspired by the movement of schools of fish (Alicja Czyczel).

Deaf Gain understands the notion of deafness not as a disability, but as a separate culture and identity, offering new perspectives and forms of expression. The team creates a significant amount of its audio and video material in the water – an environment where Deaf people can freely communicate with sign language, while hearing people make distorted sounds. The boundary between air and water is a space for communication experiments – a mirror of sorts, where different languages, bodies and ways of sensing intersect.

This project develops themes from Rebellion of the Deaf. Renewal spectacle (Zachęta, 2025), where the artists explored the theme of communication and accessibility. That led to a community of hearing and Deaf, learning from each other despite their language differences and making works together in phonic and sign languages.

The project was inspired by legendary recordings of Roger Payne, Songs of the Humpback Whale (1970), which led to a ban on hunting whales and saved them from extinction. Their complicated sounds reminded the world of the intelligence and richness of animal culture, showing art could save voices that had not been heard.

In the curatorial concept for Biennale 2026, based on the musical metaphor of ‘minor keys’, Koyo Kouoh extends an invitation to contemplatively encounter what is delicate and generally overlooked – the softer voices, neglected narratives, micro-memories. She encourages us to develop subtle forms of resistance, to create new relationships, sensitive experiments, to build polyphonic scores of mutually listening, feeling and resonating societies. Liquid Tongues develops this idea, attempting to break through what we imagine to be the limits of communication and to create subjective communities, taking various perspectives into account. This proposed version of the future considers an animal perspective as well.

The exhibition will be presented at the Polish Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.