The heroes of the title of Krzysztof Wodiczko's projection are immigrants, who being not "at home" remain "eternal guests". "Others", "aliens" are key concepts in the artist's practice, just as much in his projections and vehicles, as in his technologically advanced instruments that give a possibility of communication, of expression, of marking one's presence in the public space to those who, deprived of rights, remain mute, invisible, unnamed.

The project that the artist has conceived for the Venice Biennale is one of transforming the interior of the pavilion into a place for looking at that which is going on outside, through the illusion of windows, projected onto the windowless walls of the pavilion. The individual projections, the images of windows, are organically inscribed into the architecture of the pavilion, opening its interior out onto a virtual and at the same time real scene presenting immigrants washing windows, taking a moment to rest, talking to each other, waiting for work, exchanging remarks on the difficulty of their life situation, on the difficulty of getting work or on the problems of legalizing their residence.

The slightly misted character of the images emitted limits the clarity of the figures and the scenes being played out beyond the matt panes of glass. The play with the visibility of the immigrants who, while more or less "at arms length", are at the same time "on the other side" of the windows that blur their forms, forces us to reflect on the ambiguous status of immigrants, on their social invisibility. The impossibility of overcoming distance is experienced on both sides. For the visitors to the Biennale are also "guests", as the immigrants, from time to time straining to see into the interior of the pavilion, remind them.

Krzysztof Wodiczko, "Goście / Guests", 2008-2009, video projection, project visualisation, photos: courtesy of the artist and Zachęta National Gallery of Art

The project's theme of the multi-cultural problem of otherness touches on one of the most pressing problems of the contemporary world, both at the global scale, and specifically within the frames of an increasingly integrated Europe and a European Union whose politics mixes a discourse of acceptation and legalisation with rigid procedures regulating the movements of migrants. On this project, the artist worked together with immigrants to both Poland and Italy coming from different regions of the world: from Chechnya, Ukraine, Vietnam, Rumania, Sri Lanka, Libya, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Morocco.

In his Venice project, Wodiczko links his earlier experiences with projects on the interiors of galleries or museums, which opened the closed world of art onto the outside world, with the performative character of exterior projections which gave participants the chance to animate the facades of public buildings with the images of their faces or hands, and brought them to life with the sounds of their voices.

The Polish Pavilion Commissioner: Agnieszka Morawińska.
Exhibition Curator: Bożena Czubak.
Director: Daniel Birnbaum.

Opening: June 4, 2009, 5 pm.
Press preview: June 4 - June 6, 2009.
Exhibition will be opened from June 7 - November 22, 2009.

Organisation of the exhibition Zachęta National Gallery of Art.

More information: www.labiennale.org.

La Biennale di Venezia
Giardini di Castello
Polish Pavilion

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