In Praise of Hesitation: The Polish Pavilion at the Malta Biennale 2026

Archive-of-Hesitations_Exhibition-views_photo-Kuba-Celej-IAM_32.jpg, default, Weronika Zalewska, 'Archive of Hesitations' (Archiwum wahań), video installation, curator: Ada Piekarska, Polish Pavilion at the Malta Biennale 2026,

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In their project, artist Weronika Zalewska and curator Ada Piekarska examine the ghosts of the past that manifest themselves in the present, as well as the various circulations of knowledge as traces of their apparitions. ‘Archive of Hesitations’ represents Poland at the Malta Biennale 2026.

What value does hesitation hold in an age that rewards the ability to provide quick, unambiguous, and clear-cut answers? Can doubt – or even a refusal to pass definitive judgment – define areas of resistance against a culture that compels participation, keeping up and rapid assessment? These are the questions posed in Archive of Hesitations by Weronika Zalewska and Ada Piekarska, the artist and curator exhibiting at the Polish Pavilion at the second edition of the Malta Biennale.

The artist was inspired by a memory: a childhood image of watching game shows with her grandmother – a format particularly popular at the turn of the 1990s and 2000s, often borrowed from Western formats, and thus also symbolising the progress and civilisational advancement of a country that had only recently gained its freedom. But was the path that Polish society travelled in the 1990s really a one-way road to success?

Does the collective memory of the transformation account for the social costs of the transition and the stories of people who lacked the means to enjoy the freedom they so desired? Have the myths of universal success that emerged at that time ever been seriously questioned? By examining her own memories, Zalewska also addresses these issues. She notes, however, how ambiguous the very format of the TV quiz show is – one that triggers strong emotions, linked to the uncertainty of the questions and the nervous anticipation of the answer, the joy of a correct guess or the disappointment of failure – and thus a format that is somehow disciplining. After all, it requires not so much understanding as it does plain knowledge, and it prioritises a quick, precise – yet, within that precision, simplistic – answer over deep insight. Between ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ there is no room for shades of grey – the correct answer should, after all, be clear and obvious to everyone.

A quiz show as a knowledge factory

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Weronika Zalewska, 'Archive of Hesitations' (Archiwum wahań), video installation, curator: Ada Piekarska, Polish Pavilion at the Malta Biennale 2026, photo: Jakub Celej / IAM

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It is precisely these certainties and obvious truths that Zalewska seeks to nuance. She points to a complex spectrum of grey, which, far more than the contrast between black and white, defines what we consider to be valuable knowledge. At the same time, as the artist and curator point out, no knowledge is simply an objective fact waiting to be discovered and understood. On the contrary, it is constantly generated at the intersection of power and ideology – legitimised by institutions, upheld by authorities, and determined by social groups and classes. That is why, in the film screened in the first room of the Polish Pavilion, the participants in the television quiz – though they represent different life paths, come from different classes and presumably assess the effects of the adoption of capitalism in Poland differently – are all, in fact, equally helpless in the face of the host’s questions, which, in their format, do not allow for the expression of genuine thought.

Polish Pavilion at the Malta Biennale 2026 – Image Gallery

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This also highlights the tension between the English spoken in the tournament – the language of hegemonic globalisation and progress – and Polish, which the characters sometimes switch to, as if by chance and with a touch of embarrassment. These are never, however, accidental moments – they concern, for example, a participant’s memories of her mother – they are always linked to a revelation, a momentary destabilisation of the established order. But as Zalewska emphasised during the guided tour at the Biennale, her intention was not simply to contrast the cosmopolitanism of the English with the exoticised locality of the Polish, but rather to point out that in the era of a global, monolithic culture, there are still spaces where its order can be bent, carving out room for a more direct, bodily and spontaneous form of expression.

Outside the logic of a quiz – experiences instead of answers

If the game show captures the moment when a particular narrative is constructed, and everything that does not fit within it is pushed aside, the second film, edited from archival footage from the Educational Film Studio, presents a completely different way of disseminating knowledge and experience. It’s a stream of images: simple gestures, moments of shared work and life, eating a meal, shots of nature and the land, enriched by Mila Nowacka’s abstract, glitchy animations and Szymon Gąsiorek’s noisy, humming music.

The poetic narrative of loosely interconnected scenes is not, however, merely an aesthetic counterbalance to the rigid, structured game show, but above all a celebration of the value of experience and understanding (rather than mere knowledge) as areas of knowledge that are equally important – and who knows, perhaps even more so. Although there is nothing in the second film that can be immediately recognised or logically understood, it is hard to deny that, in its textural softness, it has warm graininess. In the editing techniques reminiscent of the workings of the mind, there is something far more direct and physical. No plot or narrative meaning is needed to immediately grasp the emotions expressed in simple actions or individual gestures. Whereas previously we were dealing with knowledge drawn upon and shaped by power, here we encounter the power of intuitive, direct cognition.

Zalewska and Piekarska, however, do not fall into the trap of setting these against one another – they do not debate in the exhibition which type of knowledge might be considered closer to the truth. They are aware that these are intertwined, complementary spheres, rather than mutually exclusive ones. After all, it is intuitive, bodily knowledge that provides the raw material from which official, institutional knowledge is formed. And without the latter – without its frameworks, categories or norms – we would have no access to the former, which by its very nature eludes rationality and linguistic description.

The creators of the Archive of Hesitations view these seemingly entirely separate circuits and resources as an incredibly complex system of interconnected vessels, in which drawing a precise boundary between one order is difficult. Another is by no means so obvious, and indeed does not seem necessary at all. This also resonates (literally!) in the two stone halls of Malta’s Fort St. Elmo, which is hosting the Biennale. Whilst in one room, it is impossible to cut oneself off from what is happening in the other – the reverberations of the game show intermingle with the noise-laden soundtrack of the video featuring the archival footage. What is more, the two films also interfere visually – the distinctive saturated red of the first is reflected on latex cushions and sheets, dominating the entire exhibition space. The work thus becomes an environment that engages multiple senses, which can also be read as a reflection of the ubiquity and, to some extent, the transparency of the circulation of knowledge, ideologies, and beliefs.

Glitches & the ghosts of the transformation

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Weronika Zalewska, 'Archive of Hesitations' (Archiwum wahań), video installation, curator: Ada Piekarska, Polish Pavilion at the Malta Biennale 2026, photo: Jakub Celej / IAM

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It’s worth pausing a little longer to consider the visuals, as it’s hard not to notice the important role played by Nowacka’s animations. In the game show film, in particular, it’s clear that her interventions serve not only an aesthetic purpose but are also an integral part of the video’s content. Distinctive streaks are visible on the screen – as if the game show contestants were ghosts leaving an ectoplasmic trail behind them. Their faces sometimes blur, and afterimages trail their gestures.

The glitch effects primarily mimic the behaviour of old analogue televisions, with signal imperfections or transmission interferences. In essence, however, they say much more – they point to a spiritual, or perhaps, to borrow Olga Drenda’s term, a ‘spiritological’ presence of the past in the present, the constant haunting of the ‘now’ by the ‘then’. This significance is particularly relevant given that we are, after all, talking about the 1990s. This decade, to this day, shapes Polish aspirations, ambitions, and desires, as well as fears and anxieties. In this sense, even if we manage to admit – this time following Polish philosopher Marcin Król, who in a famous interview revisits the achievements of the transition – that ‘we were stupid’, then, as Zalewska points out, we will never attain the maturity we so desperately wanted to grow into during the years of the transition. Our vision of progress and advancement is underpinned by the haunting presence of a complex of perpetual backwardness and inadequacy.

For ghosts, however, the distinction between past and future is irrelevant – the present is haunted by ghosts of the past, and the past always conceals within it the ‘present’ from whose perspective it is viewed. That is why Zalewska and Piekarska are not interested in a historical treatise on the times of transition, nor in reaching definitive conclusions about its merits and drawbacks, achievements and costs. They are more concerned with reconstructing how that decade of change functions today as a mummified image. Significantly, the participants in the game show are exaggerated stereotypes of representatives of various social groups – a young, enterprising entrepreneur, a manual worker, and a white-collar worker. Their answers to the host’s tricky questions reveal not so much the actual social moods of the transition period as our contemporary perceptions of it. The hesitation referred to in the title concerns the answer one ought to give, but also the subtle, central interval between the archival material and its contemporary, always anachronistic interpretation.

The Archive of Hesitations installation emphasises the present by placing benches lined with latex cushions in front of both films, as if taken from an airport or railway station waiting room. As Piekarska commented, these seats are intended to create an impression of an ‘eternal present’, of waiting for a resolution that never comes. Just as there can be no clear winner in Zalewska’s game show, so too will consensus on the course and assessment of the political transformation always remain elusive.

What do we get in return? A reminder of the value of hesitation and doubt, the realisation that we no longer have access to the past other than through its representations today. Perhaps, instead of writing prose about the past, we should rely on poetry – just as the artist does, who has inscribed impressionistic poems on latex curtains hung along the walls of the rooms, loosely referring to themes of memory, her relationship with her grandmother, or the arbitrariness of what we consider to be knowledge. These lyrical interventions seem to convey the spiritual essence of the past far better than the quiz show host’s questions, which demand formulaic answers.

Archive of Hesitations
Polish Pavilion at the Malta Biennale 2026
11th March – 29th May 2026
Curator: Ada Piekarska
Artist: Weronika Zalewska
Animations: Mila Nowacka
Music & sound: Szymon Gąsiorek
Organisers: Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Galeria Bielska BWA
Partners: Polish Embassy in Valletta, the City of Bielsko-Biała, TVP Kultura, Wytwórnia Filmów Oświatowych
Financial support: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the City of Bielsko-Biała – Polish City of Culture 2026

Language English

contemporary art

polish contemporary art

video art

polish pavilion

malta biennale