Whale Songs: Meeting with Ellen C. Garland

event in english

translation at PJM — please submit your request to the address: at least one week before the event

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

During the meeting, Ellen C. Garland, a researcher in bioacoustics, will talk about what is known today about whale communication, their songs, as well as how knowledge about animal communication is produced. According to modern research, the social life of whales has a history that goes back millions of years, their communication cultures are among the oldest on Earth. Attempts to understand them involve more and more fields, from bioacoustics and biology, to linguistics, to AI. We will talk about the hopes and fears of research and possible directions for its development. We will ask about attempts by humans to establish communication with whales and whether such an opportunity would actually be beneficial for them. We will also discuss the use of AI in animal communication research: can working with large language models lead to a new form of linguistic anthropomorphism? The meeting will be hosted by co-author of Languages from Water, artist Bogna Burska.

Languages from Water is a project that seeks alternative ways of communication inspired by a more-than-human life. Its origins lie in the legendary recordings of Roger Payne's Songs of the Humpback Whale (1970), which led to the ban on whale hunting, which saved them from extinction. The complex sounds of these songs became a testament to the intelligence and richness of animal culture, and the recordings proved that art could save voices that had previously remained inaudible. This story is the starting point for the stories of loss evoked in the project, but also the reconstruction of cultures and contemporary work on the recovery of languages marginalized by the dominant narratives.

More about the interviewees:

Ellen C. Garland is a researcher in bioacoustics, currently an associate professor in the School of Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She earned her PhD at the University of Queensland in Australia, completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship funded by the National Academy of Sciences (NRC) at the Marine Mammal Lab at NOAA in Seattle, and was a recipient of the Royal Society Newton International Fellowship at the University of St Andrews. In 2017, she began an eight-year Royal Society University Research Fellowship program, which explores cultural transmission, vocal learning and the function of humpback singing.

Bogna Burska — co-author of the work Languages from Water. Visual artist using many forms of expression, writing dramatic texts, currently a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Her works touch on the themes of corporeality, memory and emotions, referring, among others, to social narratives and visual clichés of popular culture. It often juxtaposes what is beautiful with what is generally considered ugly, repulsive, rejected. Recently, he has dealt with various aspects of communication and attempts to understand each other in the spaces of changing ecosystems. She took part in many exhibitions at home and abroad.

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

Ellen C. Garland's text, Evolution and Revolution in Humpback Song Culture, can be found in a publication accompanying the exhibition Languages from Water.

The organizer of the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 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:

main partner of the exhibition:

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