Marine Ecology/Blue Humanities

The installation Languages from Water by Bogna Burska and Daniel Kotowski is presented until 22 November in the Polish Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition in Venice. In order to bring the project closer to the Polish public, we invite you to a series of meetings in Warsaw in autumn.

Oceans and seas have been seen for centuries as spaces of silence, and the creatures that inhabit them as devoid of voice and subjectivity. Thanks to hydrophones and bioacoustic research, the extremely complex world of underwater communication has been discovered, and whale songs have become one of the symbols of the ecological awakening of the 20th century. Today, anthropogenic noise, climate change and industrial exploitation increasingly threaten aquatic ecosystems.

During the meeting with Jan Marcin Węsławski and Ewelina Jarosz, we will talk about underwater worlds and the knowledge flowing from them, important for humanity, about challenges in the face of the climate crisis and about how to “melt away” together in conditions of systemic violence and a common, destroyed environment. We will combine the perspectives of environmental sciences and blue humanities. The meeting will be led by Ewa Chomicka, one of the curators of Languages from Water.

Languages from Water is a project that seeks alternative ways of communication inspired by a more than human life. It raises questions about what the ways animals communicate can teach us about listening, mindfulness and coexistence. It evokes stories of loss, but also of the reconstruction of cultures and the recovery of languages marginalized by the dominant narratives. The boundary between air and water here becomes a space for experimentation, reversing phonocentric communication hierarchies: under water, Deaf people, thanks to sign language, retain the possibility of fluent communication, while the voice of hearing people is distorted. Water becomes a medium that allows us to transcend ideas about the limits of communication, and the experiences of marine mammals — a source of reflection on the practices of care, perseverance and resistance.

More about the people attending the meeting:

Jan Marcin Węsławski — marine ecologist, a graduate of the first year of the Faculty of Oceanography at the University of Gdańsk in 1975. From 1974 to 1983 he worked at the UG Marine Station in Hel, then at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Titular professor since 2000, in the years 2018-2026 director of the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Sopot. His main interests are in the impact of climate on marine biodiversity. He spent more than 50 months on polar and sea expeditions. Since 1992, he has been involved in international projects for the study of biodiversity in the seas. Since 2022, head of the EU MARBEFES project, which brings together 26 institutes from all over Europe. Member of the Polar Research Committee and the Committee for the Study of the Sea of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a supporter of deep ecology and the idea of giving half of the earth to Nature.

Ewelina Jarosz — assistant professor at the Department of Media and Cultural Studies of UKEN and an artist co-creating artistic projects related to water. Her interests lie at the intersection of environmental art and queer-feminist blue posthumanism and accessibility in art. She writes on topics such as environmental art, blue media, hydrofeminism or pleasure activism. Two-time scholarship holder of the Kościuszko Foundation. He collaborates with the E.A.R.T.H. Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and The Posthumanities Hub at Linköping University in Sweden. Member of the artistic and research duo cyber_nymphs. Co-founder of the Blue Humanities Archive.

Ewa Chomicka — co-curator of the exhibition Languages from Water. Cultural anthropologist, curator of contemporary art, facilitator. He directs the Laboratory of Museum Practices at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. He develops interdisciplinary projects combining contemporary art, research and activism, often of a performative, interventional, social nature. Involved in environmental initiatives, co-founder of the Kultura dla Klimatu collective.

Read more about Languages from Water: https://labiennale.art.pl/en/wystawy/jezyki-z-wody/

The organizer of exhibitions in the Polish Pavilion at the Biennale of Art and Architecture in Venice is Zachęta — National Gallery of Art.

The programme of events accompanying the exhibition “Languages from Water” was financed by the PKO Bank Polski Foundation.

Poland's participation in the 61st International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia is funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland:

Patron of the Polish Pavilion:

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