In 2011, Zaradny was nominated for the Deutsche Bank Foundation’s Spojrzenia Award and won the public vote. Writing about the work PASS|ED, which was on display at Zachęta at the time, Daniel Muzyczuk described it as “a return to a world of objects frozen in time and a narrative about transience”. The artist has also exhibited at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Starter Gallery and the KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin. Her work began to reveal an increasingly pronounced tendency to explore issues related to corporeality and subjectivity. Zaradny took on specific roles for precisely staged productions in which costume, make-up, and set design play a significant part; examples include her video works Octopus (2012) and The Found Body (2013). The scenographic quality is also evident in the striking installations Mauve Cycles (2025/2013) and The Sweetest Sound of the Revolving Firmament (2011) – the former is a minimalist tombstone made of salt, accompanied by a white panel onto which a holographic, shimmering film depicting the artist’s face is projected; the latter, meanwhile, is an elaborate sound installation inspired by the work of Hildegard of Bingen, in which the speakers are arranged in a distinctive circular formation.
This exploration culminated in the solo exhibition *Rondo Means Circle*, which took place in 2016 at Bunkier Sztuki in Kraków. The exhibition was conceived as a choreographic score to be performed by the viewer, as Justyna Stasiowska noted in her review of the exhibition:
Each time, one must follow a specific path, physically adapt to the object, or enter it to see anything at all. This interplay between the seen and the unseen allows the artist to introduce into the exhibition’s dramaturgy a form of cognition based on other senses, as well as the experience of objects as a path.
Alongside her exhibition activities, Zaradny has successfully developed her discography. In 2015, she released an album with Christian Fennesz (RE : EM), whilst the following year saw the release of material recorded with Kasper T. Toeplitz (Stacja nigdy w życiu) and – most significantly – her second solo album, *Go Go Theurgy*, which is a logical continuation of her previous musical and performative projects. Natalia Sielewicz wrote of this album:
The artist pushes every element of the composition – including rhythm, timbre, texture, and emotional charge – to the limits of its possibilities, creating a work that, through its systematic choreography of sounds, never takes on a conventional character. By skilfully manipulating the sounds of analogue synthesisers and electroacoustic devices, Zaradny subjects our senses to subtle shifts in harmonic and rhythmic nuances.
At the same time, Zaradny also created a minimalist performance piece bearing the same title as the album. The piece involved creating a multi-layered chalk drawing on a black wall, executed with sweeping, circular gestures. In attempting to inscribe her body within a circle in this way, the artist transformed herself, as Karol Sienkiewicz put it, into ‘a bodily compass, and somewhat into Leonardo’s famous Vitruvian Man’. However, Renaissance humanism was here replaced by the ritualistic, mechanical repetitiveness of the gesture. The documentation of the performance later formed the basis for *Theurgy Two* (2017), a diptych comprising a video and a distinctive graphic score.
An interest in sequentiality is also evident in the multi-channel composition *B U R U N D A N G A* (2017), in which processed recordings of women’s voices give the impression of being looped in an endless state of breathlessness; on the one hand, this symbolises patriarchal oppression and the inability to speak out, but at the same time it is an attempt to create a new kind of community, characterised by different forms of communication.
Another major exhibition of the artist’s work, entitled SOUNDLESS, took place in 2018 at the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok; it examined the mechanisms underlying the auditory imagination and how non-musical means can stimulate it. Drawing on the tradition of experimental art, Zaradny demonstrated that her work is closely aligned with practices that might be described as ‘silent sound art’. An in-depth reflection on silence was already evident in her earlier works (such as The Found Body or Lutosławski Cut). Still, the video Enjoy the Silence, created specifically for the exhibition at the Arsenale, must be regarded as a work of particular significance in this respect – a kind of manifesto. As stated in the text accompanying the exhibition, this contemplative film “transports the viewer into a realm that resembles outer space as much as it does an oceanic abyss, offering the chance to immerse oneself in silence”.
Since 2020, the artist’s work has increasingly revealed an interest in the issues of distance and indirect communication. This is well illustrated by the video installation *The Sound of a Distant Body* (2020), comprising complementary performances filmed for the camera. Each performance is a different variation on an attempt to mark one’s presence within a staged space, measured by the sounds produced by a theremin situated at the centre of the frame. As Izabela Smelczyńska commented on the work: “In the aimless choreography, the wandering through this isolated space and the shuffling of the cable across the floor, a sense of alienation and the futility of action is emphasised.”
The next stage in Zaradny’s spatial experiments was the performance D and P a P / P and L a P – IA / 25 April 21 / 16/21 UTC+1 (2021), which involved engaging in a dialogue with the space of the Avant-Garde Institute in Warsaw. The performance was staged live via an online broadcast, and its two instalments – one during the day and one in the evening – differed significantly in terms of the forms of sonic interaction with selected elements of the architecture and furnishings of Edward Krasiński’s studio.
At the end of 2024, the exhibition Dłubak × Zaradny: non finito opened at Galeria Studio in Warsaw. It was yet another example of the informal creative dialogue that the artist behind *Enjoy the Silence* has long been conducting with the classics of the post-war avant-garde – this time, a dialogue with the works of Zbigniew Dłubak. In this exhibition, Zaradny not only commented on selected works by the artist, but also used them to expand the meanings of her own works. As with her earlier works that engaged with the oeuvre of Edward Krasiński, the exhibition at Galeria Studio also problematised both the exhibited artworks and the gallery space itself, ultimately serving as a stage for performative actions: there, the artist presented the composition *Pomiędzy non finito* (Between Non Finito), written for alto saxophone, theremin, voice, water phone and electronics; it was a concert in four acts taking place in the foyer, two rooms and on the stairs, which allowed the audience to actively follow the sound and visual structure as it unfolded live.
In spring 2025, Zaradny took part in the exhibition *The Republic of Cynics* at the Museum of Modern Art, where she once again took on the role of guide through an exhibition comprising sound works and performance documentation. Prepared for this occasion, *Soothing Message* is a piece for voice and three megaphones, composed in strict interval relationships – the recording was intended to cut through the layers of sound on the staircase where the exhibition was held, structuring its rather chaotic audiosphere.
Another significant work from this period is *Sky is the Limit / Secret Stream*, an installation initially displayed outside the Zachęta building as part of the exhibition *Tears of Happiness* (2024), and subsequently acquired for the ING Polish Art Foundation’s collection and, in a modified form, installed permanently in Plac Unii Lubelskiej (2025). It is a capsule buried in the ground, containing a set of small objects that emit sound and light – technological artefacts now considered obsolete. As the artist commented on the work: “For me, it is a story about the inevitable passage of time and technological change, and the consequences of constant development.”
In 2026, Zaradny opened with a solo exhibition at the Foksal Gallery, marking the start of the celebrations for the sixtieth anniversary of this institution, which is of immense importance to Polish art. There, she presented the latest instalment of the ‘Enjoy the Silence’ project. The video was complemented by an object specially created for the occasion – a large triangle of uncut glass, as if taken from the projection and embedded in a large display case, which was installed in the garden in front of the gallery building. The work, which might bring to mind a melting fragment of an iceberg, introduced new interpretative contexts to the project, centred on ethical and ecological issues. Zaradny pointed out that the world we live in has been so transformed by the capitalist system of exploitation that it is no longer possible to distinguish between what is natural and the products of civilisation.
