An exhibition embodying a new beginning, THE ARK symbolically inaugurates this space, much like the ceremonial launching of a ship. The title itself evokes images of transition: entrances, passageways, and portals. The featured works recall the ethos of the pub as a place of community, becoming a symbolic waypoint on an ongoing journey towards relationships, self-discovery, evolving values, and questioning the nature of humanity. The artists confront the viewer with contrasts between the primordial and the industrial, the human and the mythical, constructing hybrid entities and a world in which humanity, as we conceive it today, is no longer the dominant force. The exhibition creates a space for multidimensional reflection on the fluidity of genders, bodies, relationships, places, and moments – where life paths and interspecies connections intertwine and overlap, dissolving the boundaries of space-time and territory.

THE ARK challenges human exceptionalism, proposing a reality where humans and non-humans co-exist without hierarchy. It deconstructs human dominance and strips away our privileged position as rulers of the planet to envision a world in which alternative existences take precedence. The further one descends into the exhibition space, the more human influence dissolves, giving way to new ontologies.

The exhibition blends object-oriented ontologies, queer and interspecies bodies, and the natural world within a technological framework. THE ARK becomes a vessel without a captain, navigating a post-human world where survival belongs not to those who dominate, but to those who adapt and transform.The ultimate question remains: In this utopian future, if Homo sapiens endures, will they learn from animals rather than exploiting them for their own use?


Natalia Barczyńska