Regions of silence
24.09-11.10.2026
Przyszła Niedoszła @przyszla_niedoszla
Warsaw
Curatorial team
Michalina Czerwońska @nie_dzieki and Mateusz Włodarek @wlod.mat
Artists
Michał Ciesielski @najseksimichal Michalina Czerwońska @nie_dzieki Paula Jędrzejczak @paulajedrzejczak Justyna Kramarz @kramarzzz Paweł Marcinek @pawelmarcinex Marta Matysiak @martamatysiak Martyna Modzelewska @martynka.dagmarka Asia Ogińska @joginska Lena Pierga @lenapierga Kacper Tomaszewski @kacpertomaszewski
Photo
Lena Pierga @lenapierga
What happens when one tries to peak into the furthest horizons of perception? When sitting in front of a wall, do I know it’s behind me because I have seen it before, or rather because I sense it through my body’s relationship with space? In the exhibition “Regions of silence”, we examine the relationship between presence and absence, trying to showcase that it is not a simple binarism nor a structure based on complete polar opposites. Rather, both states define one another and are interdependent.
How can we perceive the imperceptible? This question – one that “common sense” tells us to treat as rhetorical – has a number of possible answers.
One of them was proposed by the statistician Abraham Wald, who pointed out that the military, by drawing conclusions about how to optimize the safety of aircraft design based on those that returned from missions, is making a literally fatal mistake: by overlooking the planes that did not return, they ignore the ones whose damage reveals the most critical weaknesses in structural components. Another feasible answer can be found in the famous study by the writer and economist Caroline Criado Perez entitled Invisible Women; a study that reveals gaps concerning women in the data upon which we organize our world—such as the famous example of “crash tests,” in which vahicle safety during accidents was tested only on models with the body of the average man.
A different insight is embodied by a patient with anosognosia, who is at the same time unaware of the paralysis of his own limb, and skillfully avoids situations in which they would have to notice and acknowledge that paralysis.Maurice Merleau-Ponty, when writing about the regions of silence that suddenly emerge in the human body and the resulting inability to communicate with the rest of the world, states: “we avoid asking the question in order not to have to perceive this silence and we turn away from regions of our life where we could encounter this nothingness, but this is to say that we discern them.” (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception)