Two years ago, Poland\u2019s entry for the 2024 Biennale caused a stir domestically after the original selection, a project by the artist Ignacy Czwartos, was cancelled by the incoming centrist government of Donald Tusk. Having viewed Czwartos\u2019s work as being too closely aligned with the previous government\u2019s nationalistic agenda, many working professionally in the art scene were delighted to see the Polish painter replaced with a video-based project by Ukraine\u2019s Open Group collective.<\/p>\n
This time around, the country\u2019s entry\u2014an audio-video installation by the Polish artists Bogna Burska and Daniel Kotowski\u2014is less likely to cause such friction, with the more progressive side of the art scene currently coexisting more comfortably with Tusk\u2019s coalition government than was the case under the previous regime.<\/p>\n
Created in close collaboration with the curators Ewa Chomicka and Jolanta Woszczenko, Liquid Tongues centres on a performance by the Ch\u00f3r w Ruchu (Choir in Motion) that includes both hearing and deaf performers, with much of the content recorded underwater in a Warsaw swimming\u00a0pool. Presented across two screens, with one of those set to be suspended above the heads of visitors as they enter the Polish pavilion, early previews suggest audiences can expect a visually arresting and sonically charged production that takes inspiration from whale song to explore \u201calternative modes of\u00a0communication\u201d.<\/p>\n
Liquid Tongues\u00a0builds on a performance by the\u00a0Choir in Motion\u00a0the artists collaborated on at Warsaw\u2019s Zach\u0119ta National Gallery of Art last year. Originally founded in 2014, the choir has a shifting membership that adapts to different projects, with Kotowski facilitating the inclusion of deaf performers for both the Zach\u0119ta performance and the Venice project. While the former featured a combination of spoken Polish and Polish Sign Language,\u00a0Liquid Tongues\u00a0uses spoken English and International Sign.<\/p>\n
Burska and Kotowski sketched out some of the ideas developed in\u00a0Liquid Tongues\u00a0by filming underwater in the Baltic last summer, but felt the more controlled environment of an indoor swimming pool would be better suited to both the winter schedule and the number of participants involved in the production for Venice. Even so, the artists say that filming underwater still proved to be one of the most challenging parts of the production, with Burska noting that \u201clots of rehearsals\u201d were required to understand the change in optics and the water\u2019s \u201cdisorientating\u201d effect.<\/p>\n
Shooting at the pool over three days, Kotowski says that it was only after the performers had practised on land and the team \u201cwere fully sure they had everything ready and in place, technically and with the film crew\u201d that they could proceed in the water. The artist, who is deaf himself, adds that the need to fine-tune the signed parts of the performance, as well as factors such as how deaf audiences would perceive the choir\u2019s facial expressions, added an extra layer to control.<\/p>\n
Beyond the practical considerations of the shoot, the concept of performing underwater plays an important role in the thinking behind the project, embracing a space where sign language retains its ability to communicate effectively while spoken speech becomes distorted and unreliable. Burska says that was noticeable on set where, even out of the water, the acoustics of the swimming pool left the hearing members of the team finding it harder to communicate than their deaf colleagues.<\/p>\n
Liquid Tongues\u00a0is also notable for the collaborative nature of the project, drawing on the skills of multiple participants and different disciplines. Alongside the choir and film crew, additional creative input comes from choreography by Alicja Czyczel and a choral and musical score\u00a0by Aleksandra Gryka.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Giardini<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two years ago, Poland\u2019s entry for the 2024 Biennale caused a stir domestically after the original selection, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,366,18,117,19,17,337,13851,379,95735],"class_list":{"0":"post-473051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-music","18":"tag-performance-art","19":"tag-poland","20":"tag-venice-biennale-2026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116533592515487461","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}