Polyphonies. Exhibition accompanying the “Sinfonia Varsovia – New Opening” Festival

What constitutes a space for an orchestra? What can one do to make the audience feel at home within it? How can one engage with the history of a place, listen to the voices of the neighborhood, and collaboratively build plans for the future? The Polyphonies exhibition addresses precisely these questions, inviting visitors to explore Sinfonia Varsovia’s newly opened, modernized venues.

Presented in three buildings of the former Veterinary Institute—renovated according to a design by the Austrian Atelier Thomas Pucher—the exhibition highlights the diverse contexts of these venues through the works of contemporary artists. Built on the principle of polyphony, where independent, equal voices can coexist, the exhibition embodies the multilayered nature of the post-industrial Kamionek district and neighboring Grochów, as well as the unique character of historic buildings adapted for new functions. In them, the past, present, and future resonate simultaneously. 

Art interventions, scattered throughout the buildings, expand upon the visual logic of Tymek Borowski’s work, fragments of which—enlarged twentyfold—are featured on the ceilings of the rooms. Daniel Brożek’s sound installations, Agnieszka Rayss’s photographs, Patrycja Orzechowska’s jacquard fabric, Ewa Maria Śmigielska’s performative sculpture accompanied by music by Wojtek Blecharz, and Zorka Wollny’s performance—created in collaboration with the staff of Sinfonia Varsovia—operate on an architectural scale, engaging in a dialogue with the spaces opened to the public.

All of the art interventions are complemented by the outdoor section of the exhibition, prepared by Maciej Siuda’s studio. It explores the architecture, functions, and future of this site—the headquarters of one of the still few public cultural institutions on the right bank of the Vistula River. 

Artists: Wojtek Blecharz and Ewa Maria Śmigielska, Tymek Borowski, Daniel Brożek, Patrycja Orzechowska, Agnieszka Rayss, Zorka Wollny
Curator of the exhibition: Aleksandra Kędziorek
Curator of Tymek Borowski’s work: Monika Szewczyk
Exhibition design: Pracownia Macieja Siudy
Coordination: Matylda Dobrowolska, Zofia Ledzion

11.09 (Friday) 21:30-22:10

Zorka Wollny
Portrait of an Orchestra in an Interior: Concert for the Staff and Building of Sinfonia Varsovia

During this performance created by Zorka Wollny in collaboration with Sinfonia Varsovia’s staff—both the musicians and the administrative team—the orchestra's newly renovated headquarters will fill with sound. Unfolding across the architectural space, the piece is woven from stories, memories, musical phrases, dreams, and plans. It serves as an invitation to wander through the building together—a symbolic gesture of settling into the new space and welcoming the audience inside.

Palace

Tymek Borowski
Portrait of Sinfonia Varsovia
acrylic on canvas, fragments digitally printed on vinyl membranes, 2026
curator: Monika Szewczyk

“If one can portray a person, then one can also portray an institution,” writes Monika Szewczyk, curator of Tymek Borowski’s project.

“Sinfonia Varsovia, being an institution that combines classicism and innovation, creativity and tradition, seemed like the ideal subject. Dynamic in concept, complex, heterogeneous; always in a state of becoming, and open to change. Borowski posed the question: what would it look like if it were a painting?”

The idea to place fragments of the painting on the ceilings of the rooms and, by illuminating them, fill the building with colorful light came from the designer of Sinfonia Varsovia’s headquarters—Thomas Pucher. Szewczyk suggested entrusting the work to Tymek Borowski, a painter who had previously created portraits of the institution. The painting was preceded by an in-depth research process, including, among other things, conversations with musicians and the administrative staff.

What served as the starting point for the portrait of Sinfonia Varsovia was Jackson Pollock's painting Totem Lesson I—a composition both classical and avant-garde at the same time. Borowski treated the painting as a musical score and performed it the way an orchestra performs a composer’s works—following the original piece while also reinterpreting it. He rotated the “score-painting” from vertical to horizontal to capture the collective nature of the orchestra. “An orchestra is more of a landscape than a person,” Borowski says. The artist immersed himself in the painting process, applying successive layers of paint in glazes. The result is a dynamic, dense, and ever-changing yet subtle composition in which new layers preserve the old, and the older ones influence the shape of the newer ones. After completing the painting, the artist selected fragments from it, which were printed at 20x magnification and installed in the ceiling panels of the rooms.

Agnieszka Rayss
Sinfonia Varsovia
photographs, 2024

Photographs taken in the main building and outbuildings of the former Veterinary Institute document a moment of transition—a time when the buildings were shedding their old skin to reveal their future potential. Traces of veterinary education gradually faded away, while the architectural models stored within the spaces foreshadowed the site’s new functions. The series was created during Agnieszka Rayss and Marcin Wicha’s collaborative work on the book entitled Kamionek (Museum of Warsaw, 2025).

1. A wall in the outbuilding on Terespolska Street
2. The floor in the Palace’s main lobby before renovation (Villeroy Boch tiles visible)
3–4. Models from the design competition for the Sinfonia Varsovia headquarters
5. A door in the outbuilding on Terespolska Street
6. A radiator in the Palace
7–9. Auditorium at the Palace
10. Detail of an art installation
11. Lecture hall in the outbuilding on Grochowska Street 
12–16. Remnants of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (X-ray room, staff lockers, drawers for medical records, tiled stove, horse tie ring in the stable of the outbuilding)

Daniel Brożek
Garden of Resonances
sound installation, 2026

This three-part site-specific composition is based on the sounds and acoustics of the building and the surroundings of Sinfonia Varsovia; it invites one to listen more deeply to the soundscape. In venues designed for music, all unplanned sounds are typically eliminated. Similarly, sound reflections off the walls are undesirable in concert halls, as are sounds during performances that were not planned by the composer or performers—such as the sound of wind, traffic, or birdsong. The building’s operating systems—ventilation, electrical systems, and the equipment that supports them—should also be as silent as possible.

The presented work turns these principles on their head. It draws on historical depictions of buildings attuned to their own surroundings, as found in the first treatise on acoustics—Athanasius Kircher’s Phonurgia nova—as well as on the concepts of aural architecture and sound choreography by Maryanne Amacher, who explored sound waves within architectural structures.

Spanning rooms and corridors, the work treats the building as an instrument—a resonator of its own sounds and those coming from the surroundings. Experienced as a walk or a sound meditation, it draws attention to the diversity of the building’s sounds and reverberations, while also encouraging reflection on the significance of acoustics and sound ecology in everyday life.

The sounds on the ground floor record the building’s internal life: the electromagnetic radiation from electrical and electronic installations hidden within the walls, as well as the operation of ventilation systems below ground. The installation in the Auditorium on the second floor is a recording of April sunrises in nearby parks. It highlights the time of day when traffic noise pollution is at its lowest, and the birdsong in its acoustic niche is at its most resonant. The composition in the apartment—which will be used by composers, conductors, and musicians invited by Sinfonia Varsovia for artist-in-residence programs—offers a preview of the acoustics of the future concert hall.

Fragment of the work features the following excerpts from the Concerts in Scale series, recorded in 2021 in an acoustic mock-up model of Sinfonia Varsovia’s future concert hall:

Johann Sebastian Bach: Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004; Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001; Claude Debussy: Syrinx; Martijn Padding: One Trumpet; Krzysztof Penderecki: Dance for solo violin; Astor Piazzolla: Tango-Etude No. 3; Georg Philipp Telemann: Fantasy No. 6 in D minor, Fantasy No. 8 in E minor; Eugène Ysaÿe: Sonata No. 2 in A minor, Op. 27

• Arkadiusz Krupa – oboe
• Andrzej Krzyżanowski – flute
• Jan Harasimowicz – trumpet
• Jakub Haufa – violin
• Zofia Endzelm – violin
• Joanna Popowicz – sound engineering

Sinfonia Varsovia X

As part of the Polyphonies exhibition at Sinfonia Varsovia X, we present a work by Ewa Maria Śmigielska and Wojtek Blecharz, which you can experience Tuesday through Thursday from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Friday through Sunday from 12:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Please remain quiet at the entrance so as not to disturb other visitors. A maximum of 30 people may attend the space at any one time.

You are also encouraged to participate in immersive sessions, which are designed to provide a full experience of the work. The sessions will take place on September 12–13 and September 18–20 at 7:00 PM. Admission is free, but tickets are required and available at sinfoniavarsovia.org.

On September 25–26, we invite you to concerts organized as part of the Mad about Music festival (tickets required). During these days, the artwork will be temporarily unavailable.

The entrance is located on the courtyard side.

Ewa Maria Śmigielska
music: Wojtek Blecharz
Anatomical Constellations
spatial-sound installation, 2026
Sinfonia Varsovia X partner: Dekoma

Ewa Maria Śmigielska’s immersive performative sculpture, accompanied by music by Wojtek Blecharz, draws on the architecture and history of the site—a former anatomical theater, once an operating room for large animals located in the surgical pavilion of the Veterinary Institute. 

The project reverses the logic of the historical anatomical theater, where the body, surrounded by the audience, was the object of observation. Here, the viewer is incorporated into the structure of the work and immersed in a monumental composition of light, sound, and space.

The installation interacts with its surroundings and is subject to constant transformation, creating a space of contemplation where silence coexists with Blecharz’s composition. For Śmigielska, silence and time become the material of sculpture, being on par with light and sound in the vein of formal and cultural syncretism.

Music Pavillion

In the Music Pavilion, as part of the Polyphonies exhibition, the work of Patrycja Orzechowska is on display. You can view the work Tuesday through Thursday from 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM and Friday through Sunday from 12:00 PM to 9:00 PM.

If the door to the concert hall is ajar, you are welcome to take a look inside. Please do not open closed doors—rehearsals or concerts may be in progress.

Patrycja Orzechowska
Soft Tissues
jacquard fabric (wool, cotton), 2026
weave design: Iza Sojka / themost.pl

This large-format jacquard fabric, created specifically for the foyer of Sinfonia Varsovia’s Music Pavilion, recalls the history of this place—the former stables of the therapeutic pavilion of the Veterinary Institute.

Between the cast-iron columns on which it now hangs, there used to be stalls for animals. At the Institute, farm and military working animals were treated, and later—at the Small Animal Clinic of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), operating in the neighboring pavilion—also pets. Hence, the pyramid of animals created by the artist features slightly different characters than those in the legend of the Bremen Town Musicians: a rooster, a dog, a cow, and a horse—pets and farm animals that have been intertwined with human fate for centuries.

The artist drew inspiration for the composition from anatomical drawings, illustrations from old veterinary textbooks, and contemporary diagnostic images. She approached the delicate, soft tissues as ornamentation, highlighting the internal architecture of the animals’ bodies and transforming their organic forms into a universal tale of the mystery of life.