The installation invites a sensory immersion that does not resolve the usual categories of thought and language. At its core is Choir in Motion (Chór w Ruchu), a group of deaf performers who interpret communication codes in International Sign (IS) and spoken English. Through images, sound composed by Aleksandra Gryka and physical experience, the work amplifies and interprets the acoustic waves associated with vocalization and echolocation of the right whale. The result is a plurisensorial collective choreography, directed by Alicja Czyczel and filmed by Magda Mosiewicz and Bogna Burska, where the choir makes fluid movements inspired by schools of fish, suggesting a form of communication built on collective sounds instead of speech.
Much of the work was filmed underwater—an environment where spoken language is distorted while sign language remains legible and powerful. Water makes it seem that sound itself is a matter of waves and frequencies, turning what is often seen as a limit into a center of energy for sensory communication. On the water, leadership built on communication skills is top-down, Burska explains. He says: “Sound communication is incomprehensible and immediately forces us to expel all the air from our lungs. Hearing scuba divers use simple sign codes; deaf divers, however, can communicate freely.”
“People have created an image of the world under the laws of the air. That’s why we play according to that list,” said Kotowski. “Under water, we sign much slower than above, which gives the language a different quality and increases attention to the movements of the sign language. But there is no loss of content.”
“Water changes a lot of things – the lack of oxygen, the most important, which we all feel equally,” adds Burska. Water is more than 800 times denser than air, which means sound travels 5 times faster but dissipates faster. At the same time, layers of varying density in the ocean act as nearly lossless channels for acoustic waves, allowing sound to travel thousands of kilometers. Light, in contrast, is absorbed quickly under water, but when seen through an air-filled mask or goggles, objects appear much closer than they are. “Water carries vibrations better than air—when a whale sings, we hear it with our bodies, just as we hear the echolocation of many cetaceans when we pass them.” This world, and learning how it works, is very inspiring.
The pavilion works within a productive conflict between communication and miscommunication, between human-written systems and intuitive nature. In doing so, it addresses themes of loss and reconstruction—how humans, as well as other species, have continued to create new ways of communicating information when established codes are threatened or unavailable.
Meditation feels timely. In an era of mass communication—where the technological possibilities of communication seem limitless yet the experience of isolation increases—the power activated by the “gain of the deaf” shows the possibility of other models of integrated communication and the return of attention, both between people and between people and other creatures.
“The world tends to look for simple things, especially within capitalist systems, to improve communication and serve the needs of the majority,” Kotowski said. “Other forms of communication remain invisible, unappreciated or ignored.” Among those forms is sign language, which is often not recognized as an alternative, although it provides an alternative form of communication with distinct advantages. “Sign language encourages attentiveness and sensitivity to situations and people, evokes empathy and allows for detailed narratives.” In this sense, the achievement of the Deaf is an example of the benefits that come from other ways of communicating and seeing the world—forms that suggest a greater understanding, a transcendental awareness of the human being beyond the rational mind that has a single direction of language that has shaped the anthropocentric situation, a sense of reality defined only by man.
“I think that our concept of communication is one among many, as there are many ways to reconstruct and restore parts of reality that are important to us,” shows Burska, describing this reconstruction “as a creative work that cannot be separated from the present. I don’t know how to solve the problem of separation. But to create diverse natural communities – human and non-human, cooperation is always possible, and we always see how it is possible for new unity to rethink, and how it is possible for people to reconsider – and that we live how do we see how it is possible to rebuild the people? is it worth the effort.” As the field progresses, it becomes clear how many things we think from habit or unnecessary simplification. “We must examine ourselves carefully,” he concluded. “Perhaps many alternatives are possible.”
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