Team of "Liquid Tongues," photo by Jacopo Salvi (altomare): Zacheta ArchiveBogna Burska and Daniel Kotowski's piece “Liquid Tongues” was chosen for the Polish Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2026). It unfolds over a two-screen video installation. Thirty members of the Chór w Ruchu (Choir in Motion), which consists of hearing and deaf people, perform the libretto both underwater and on the surface, using sound and sign language to move across various forms of communication. Inspired by Roger Payne's legendary 1970 recordings Songs of the Humpback Whale, which led to a ban on whale hunting, “Liquid Tongues” explores possibilities of multi-sensory communication, Deaf Gain, and the importance of giving "voice" to bring about societal transformation. Interview by Lea Schleiffenbaum.
Lea Schleiffenbaum: The Polish Pavilion was one of the first I saw upon visiting the opening days of the Venice Biennale in early May. The work immediately captured my attention. In it, you emphasize the possibilities of different modes of communication, while at the same time referencing a recording that stands for the importance of sound and singing for cross species understanding. There is a great beauty in this double-attention. Maybe we can start there: How did you come up with the plot and the focus of the film?
Bogna Burska: I’ve had the idea of a Deaf/hearing choir for a really long time, ever since 2018, when I had the chance to test the idea of a choir that could sing and sign. The project was called “Rebellion of the Deaf” and told stories of languages and broke down communication between people. In 2025, I finally found the funding to create a choir combining Deaf and hearing people, Daniel conducted the Deaf part of the choir and taught the hearing part how to sign properly. Ewa Chomicka was curating the Choir in Motion. We called it “Rebellion of the Deaf: Renewal”. The only story in this project is a story of rebellion of Deaf students at Gallaudet University in 1988: they protested to get a Deaf Chancellor, and they won. The second thread is my fascination with water and the sea; I started windsurfing and over time began learning to film underwater. At some point I started learning to talk underwater and film it, which made me realise hearing people can’t talk underwater, but you can communicate freely by signing. In 2024, I invited Daniel to make an underwater video where we talk, each in our own language. I called it “Breath”, because that’s what connects us. This video reverses the communication hierarchy and shows the randomness of the hierarchies we create; it’s purely the dominance of the majority.
The third thread is whales and their communication: I was stunned by “Fathom”, a documentary about two studies on humpback whale communication, which is millions of years older than humanity itself. Project CETI’s achievements are amazingly inspiring, we have an entire scene in our video inspired by their research into sperm whale codas, which operate not unlike human alphabets. Some of them have functions similar to our vowels. Right after watching “Fathom”, I called Ewa Chomicka to say that was what our Deaf/hearing choir must do: we had to create a superhuman language that expressed itself in sound, image and space. It became a fantasia on interpreting whale communication and imagining more-than-human forms of communication. I had this hope that maybe the two combined forms of human communication would let us dream of talking to whales better. I also asked Daniel if he could imagine and create signs for whale calls.
Daniel Kotowski: I would also like to add a note about underwater communication. Signing underwater is not a new experience for me. In the Deaf community, we know that communication is possible in many conditions: underwater, in noisy environments, in echoey spaces, or through glass. This is one example of the Deaf Gain concept, which has many different manifestations around the world. Unfortunately, most people do not notice this, or are unaware that such communication skills exist. That is why I wanted to highlight this perspective and draw attention to the communication possibilities in the Deaf experience. I also brought in the history of Hand Talk (Plains Indian Sign Language), which shows that sign languages have long played an important role in communication between hearing and Deaf people. I wanted to show that their cooperation is not new. What we are doing in this project has roots in much older communication practices. The sources I have found state that the history of Hand Talk dates back to around 1400 BCE. This is evidence that people have long naturally communicated across linguistic and cultural differences.
Liquid Tongues installation view, photo by Jacopo Salvi (altomare): Zacheta Archive
LS: Can you say something about the spatial set-up of the pavilion? There are two screens, one set in an angle above, another bellow on the opposite side.
BB: We wanted to give a viewer a choice between watching one screen, and switching to the other, further away from your seat, or watching both at the same time. The screen above was partly from an underwater perspective, but only partly. Sometimes the choir on that screen faces the choir below, sometimes it almost mirrors the scene on the other screen, sometimes it shows it from a different perspective, or different details.
LS: How do you collaborate? Do you have certain roles or tasks that are clearly divided between the two of you?
BB: Sometimes we do, although many things we did together, developing each other’s ideas again and again, until both sides were satisfied. Deaf and hearing perspectives can be very different sometimes. And sometimes we had to recreate particular scenes many times to meet both sides’ expectations. The libretto Daniel and I wrote together. Daniel developed signs for the humpback calls with sign language translators and Alicja Czyczel. Daniel also taught the choir to sign and conducted them underwater, while I monitored the image from land; at other points, we both worked at the monitors. This project required us to become one, in a sense, to be immersed in each other’s capacities and potential.
DK: At the beginning, I worked with the Deaf and hearing groups separately, as each has different needs. The Deaf participants worked on fluency in signing, rhythm, emotional expression, and artistic delivery. The hearing participants, who had no prior experience with sign language, had to learn, among other things, facial expressions, which are a key element of this language. I had to explain very precisely how to use facial expressions and how to sign so as not to change the meaning of the signs. Every movement in sign language is significant; an incorrectly performed sign can have a completely different meaning. So, both groups worked separately at first, and later came together to develop synchronization and to learn how to “sing” in sign language in a coherent and rhythmic way. I also checked whether Maja Ziarkiewicz, our film editor, was properly editing the scenes in which sign language appears. It was important not to cut off the hands and to ensure that the sign language remained coherent and legible. The people working on the editing did not know sign language, so I paid special attention to this. My aim was for the film editing to include a Deaf perspective – a ‘Deaf Lens’.
I think about collaboration and about how we work with other people. I often encounter the belief that the presence of people with disabilities in art projects automatically makes them social or inclusive. In the art world, this way of thinking is still very strong, because privileged people tend to frame it this way. From our perspective, we are first and foremost artists. We do not use such divisions. Each person in our choir works with their own body and its specifics. None of those bodies is less valuable or less professional than another. What matters to us is not a gesture of ‘giving’ or ‘including’, but reciprocity: a situation where all the participants contribute something. The very act of inclusion assumes inequality, because someone always decides who is to be included. In this sense, it does not change the system, but reproduces it, maintaining the division between centre and periphery.
Bogna Burska and Daniel Kotowski, "Liquid Tongues," 2026, video still, Zachęta Archive
LS: There is a network of actors in this work: the whales and their songs, the choir and its performers, you as artists, Ewa Chomicka and Jolanta Woszczenko, the pavilion curators, Aleksandra Gryka, who composed the vocals. I guess over time, the crew you worked with grew even more: Magda Mosiewicz did the filming, Alicja Czyczel the choreography, not to mention the costumes, post-production etc. How would you describe the infrastructure you built for the work and its different actors?
BB: Daniel, Ewa Chomicka and I supervised the coherence of this multilayered process, each from a different perspective. Daniel and Ewa Chomicka supervised and led respectively the choir’s Deaf and hearing groups. At the same time, each of us was trying to understand everything that was going on and help with the other processes. I think that after we won the competition in late August, until we opened the Pavilion in May, we were in contact every day, often from the early morning to very late at night. It was truly crazy.
DK: The other central presence in the project was the Choir in Motion. These hearing and Deaf people worked with true passion. They overcame the language barrier in a shared process and with the help of sign language translators, with lots of faith. Ewa Chomicka, who was not only a curator, but who also curates the hearing part of the Choir in Motion and is one of the performers, was deeply engaged in the group process. After filming we edited it collectively. I remember an experience from the competition time. I believed in that project, in the fact that we could create something like a dream or utopia in reality. When we found out we were among the finalists, we had to work out many things in a short period of time. We made an underwater recording, as well as a music sketch by Aleksandra Gryka. Alicja Czyczel made her choreographic sketch. Each of us presented their materials so that the jury could imagine how the project would look.
But as a Deaf person, I did not believe we could win. In my experience, Deaf people are often not given the chance to participate in such large-scale projects. In the Deaf community, there is still a widespread belief that success is primarily reserved for hearing people, while Deaf people can at best expect to remain at the margins. It turned out we won. We were shocked, but proud!
LS: Daniel, you prepared the signs to embody the whales. How did you go about this task?
DK: First, I ‘listened’ to the calls, the sounds produced by humpback whales, which were interpreted into sign language. In a sense, the interpreter ‘loaned’ me their hearing. I asked questions about tempo, frequency, and the structure of the sounds. I have the ability to imagine sound. I also studied scientific materials with interpretations of these calls. Then I watched many videos, some on YouTube, observing how the humpback whale’s body moves – how it swims, how it jumps out of the water, and so on. A Deaf person using sign language operates within a visual-spatial language, which naturally involves a high attentiveness to visual observation. I began to imagine how sign language forms could correspond to whale communication. When I showed this to Bogna, I put my mouth into a ‘horseshoe’ shape. Bogna was concerned viewers might interpret it as an expression of sadness. For me, it was simply a way of reflecting the form of the whale, its snout naturally takes this shape. This is, however, different from the mouth shape associated with sadness. Deaf performers in our choir are more attuned to such nuances, as they are more sensitive to subtle facial expressions.
I also drew inspiration from the movement of the humpback whale’s pectoral fins. I developed sign language forms based on hand movement: the hands are held flat, with fingers pressed together and extended out flat, not rigid like stone, but softer like paper. The hand movements resemble the motion of fins and are meant to embody how a humpback moves through water. I then combined this with the whale calls so that the tempo and rhythm of movement corresponded to the structure of their sounds.
Bogna Burska and Daniel Kotowski, "Liquid Tongues," 2026, video still, Zachęta Archive
LS: This year’s Biennale felt very political. What strikes me about your work is that it engages with political themes but without pointing fingers. There's a lightness to it. What role does humour have in your work?
BB: Well, humour is always good, I guess. I think we went for the impossible: singing underwater, ignoring the difficulties attached to working with the choir underwater, while working under the time pressure and deadlines of such a complex project. Wherever there is absurdity, there is a space for humour, I guess. I would like there to be. We need it. I think humour is always a part of radical exercises in imagination.
DK: Humour is a spectrum to me. In my practice I often use it as a tool to provoke. I like to play with language codes, making the viewer feel lost or uncomfortable every so often, sometimes even ashamed. I do this to get people to reflect and increase their awareness of how communication and language operate.
LS: What does it mean to represent Poland at the Venice Biennale in 2026?
BB: To be honest, the idea of representing Poland was really abstract to me. What does it mean to represent a country when I struggle to define it? How does it feel? But later, after the opening, many people we know, and some strangers said they were proud of their pavilion, meaning the Polish Pavilion, proud of us. That was a really good feeling. Those people made me feel that it matters to others as well, that many people identify with the notion of being ‘Polish’, even if they don’t identify with everything that goes with it. It’s a great feeling when many people tell you that they are proud of what you did and they feel the accomplishment is theirs, too.
DK: Speaking personally, I don’t think in terms of representing a national pavilion. Two things are extremely important to me: The first is that at the opening of the Biennale I could use my own language – sign language – in a space where spoken language dominates. I did not adapt myself to a phonocentric environment, which for me is a gesture of presence and visibility for sign language within that space. The second is empowerment for Deaf people, especially with regard to marginalised g/Deaf communities, including those with intersectional experiences. People who live without access to resources or spaces where they can stand up and say: “I am.” People who rarely have the opportunity to see their own identity reflected in the public space.
It’s also important to remember that this project could not have been made without a Deaf person involved. The Deaf perspective was not an add-on to a finished concept; it was one of its key elements. It was precisely this perspective that made it possible to develop the themes related to Deaf Gain, sign language, and reversing communication hierarchies. In this sense, the Deaf perspective was not just present in the project, it formed one of its foundations. At the same time, it was not the only one. The project emerged from a meeting of many people, experiences, and competencies that complemented each other and contributed to its final form.