To Whom? To What? (I Look); Whom? What? (I See)

From May 17 to June 5, 2024, the Rotunda Gallery at Collegium Da Vinci in Poznań presented the exhibition To Whom? To What? (I Look); Whom? What? (I See), organized by SWPS University as part of Poznań Art Week.

The exhibition became a space for attentive looking at another person, at oneself, at social norms. The works on view explored themes of corporeality, sexuality, and collective identity, revealing their fragility and complexity. Curated by Zofia Nycz, the show brought together artists whose works — photographs and films — examined the relationship between identity and the body in the context of social, cultural, and intimate norms. It sparked wide interest and turned into a space of vivid discussion.

Among the featured works were pieces by Katarzyna Kozyra, a pioneer of Polish critical art, who once again presented the body as a field of tension between individual freedom and social expectations. Daniel Kotowski, in his film I Read Aloud, performed a striking gesture: as a deaf person, he recited the Polish national anthem, breaking norms and redefining the idea of national identity. Karolina Sobel, in her photographs, captured fleeting moments of homoerotic intimacy — tenderness and closeness often omitted from public discourse. Meanwhile, Anna Hartman-Ksycińska’s series Identity is a Secondary Thing portrays young people on the threshold of adulthood, asking whether identity is discovered or created.

The exhibition’s titular questions — to whom we look, and whom we truly see — gained new resonance in the context of this diverse, deeply humanist show. It was an event that invited reflection on who we are and how we see one another.