n 2021, the Białowieża Forest was cut in two by a 186 km-long wall. It was built to create an obstacle for refugees trying to enter the European Union through the Belarus-Poland border.

The wall disrupts the forest's ecosystem, making animal migration impossible, but it does not stop people fleeing from war toward freedom and safety. Migrants climb over the wall, dig tunnels, and live for weeks in the forest under the open sky. Some of them never leave the forest: dozens of deaths have already been reported. How many more bodies lie hidden under the forest moss is unknown.

The French philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman "questioned" the birch trees around Auschwitz, asking what they remembered about his murdered relatives. What memory do they preserve? Do they "remember" the pain they witnessed? A direct answer is impossible: trees do not speak. But what do they hold, and whom do their shadows protect?

The exhibition "Where people and beasts wander in the shadow of the wall" is an attempt to reflect on and (not) accept how walls divide people and animals, and how nature becomes an involuntary political actor and witness.

Curators of the exhibition – Curatorial Group 4