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In the Polish Pavilion, “Liquid Tongues” Rewrites Our Hierarchy of the Senses

At the Venice Biennale, Daniel Kotowski and Bogna Burska reframe deafness as “Deaf gain” in a work that proposes a plurisensorial language involving whale song, water and sign.

Most of us grow up with the implicit assumption that there is a dominant way to perceive and interpret the world. In other words, our sense of reality is not only shaped by a complex interplay of sensory and cognitive frameworks, but also by a conventionally established hierarchy between them that is rarely questioned. In “Liquid Tongues,” the Polish Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale encourages us to reconsider this assumption by foregrounding a language of frequencies and gestures that moves between whales and marginalized human languages. Conceived by deaf artist Daniel Kotowski alongside artist and playwright Bogna Burska around the notion of “Deaf Gain,” the installation reframes deafness not as a deficit but as a distinct culture and identity offering unique sensory perspectives—ones closer to the modes of communication of other species.

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At the center is an audio-video installation that invites a reflection on how we define communication beyond the spoken word. Kotowski doesn’t believe that deaf people live in a world of silence. “Silence is, above all, an experience of the hearing,” he tells Observer. “It is we who define reality through the presence or absence of sound, which is why we speak of a ‘world of silence.'”

“It’s a simplification invented by hearing people,” Burska echoes. “I think there’s only silence where sound has meaning. Very often, there are frequencies we don’t hear and specters we don’t see.”

The deaf are taught not to use the term “silence” in their approach to hearing and deafness or in........

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