Displaced

Exhibition design 2022 | “Displaced” – a temporary open-air exhibition on Stare Nalewki in Warsaw for the Jewish Historical Institute | Team: Jan Strumiłło, Helena Wierzbowska | Production: Aleksander Sieklicki, Franciszek Belina-Brzozowski | Exhibition is open 22.07 – 02.09.2022

Upon kind invitation from the Jewish Historical Institute we delivered an outdoor spatial installation providing base for an exhibition commemorating the anniversary of the 1942 Warsaw ghetto liquidation. This year the recurring event’s focus is on the displaced, brought to the ghetto from different places, sometimes as far as Hamburg. It seemed natural to us to use prefabricated concrete wall elements as they unequivocally convey the idea of ghetto confinement. Smooth façade panels of fine fibre cement which we used as carriers of exhibition graphic contrast with the coarse cast concrete of the heavy wall blocks. The large L-shaped elements are supported by simple sand cushions and secured in place with visible oakwood wedges. Tensioned steel bands wrap around the exhibition panels to keep them in place together with small wooden distance blocks. We intentionally gave the installation the air of an assemblage so as to abstractly represent the uncertain condition of a displaced person.