Amid our everyday preoccupations, as we regularly follow the same routes amid the urban hustle and bustle of Warsaw and other cities –how often do we hear and notice the sounds of nature?

Somewhere on the margins of familiar space, in pavement cracks and crevices, clusters of grass, on urban meadows and flowerbeds – lurks the insect microcosm, normally hidden from our sight. Insects perceive the surrounding world quite differently from humans. By combining information from dozens of images into one whole, their eyes can register miniature vibrations of flowers, colours unknown to us, an dreflections of light in windows. Insects listen attentively to gusts of wind and distant footsteps. They can clearly tell the flutter of dogs’ ears from the plaintive sound of weary trucks in the urban soundscape. On the other hand, they are also very much like us. They love to gorge on pizza and ride a bike in their free time, when they are not busy taking tango lessons on the Moon, where they feel particularly light as they largely consist of sounds. These creatures, it should be explained, are not just ordinary insects. Their visual and acoustic prototypes were created by kids from Class 1A (now already 2A) of Stefan Starzyński Primary School no. 143 in Warsaw during springtime workshops run by a team of artists and educators.

The exhibition Sample, or An Insect’s Sound Profile, combining video objects, sound installations, accompanying performances, and spatial experience accessible via a dedicated app, invites the audience to take a different perspective on our city and observe how the surrounding reality is co-formed by miniature sonic and visual structures. The video objects presented in the exhibition space build a kind of dialogue with the imaginary insects that temporarily inhabit the WOK Lab, developing the children’s attention, alertness, and perceptive powers. These qualities become tools for the study of interrelations between humans and nature, for perceiving the diversity of forms of sound and communication, which may easily turn from our indispensable companions into types of pollution – an increasingly frequent problem in urban space.

How, then, have insects perceived and remembered one summer day in the centre of Warsaw? Check it out.

Amadeusz Nosal

Walking to work in the morning, I can sometimes hear a fox’s footfalls on crunching gravel in Łazienki Park alleys. Every year in April, I stop and freeze motionless to watch a flock of goosanders waddling across the busy Czerniakowska Street. I cannot stop feeling amazed at the stamina of a self-sown pear tree growing on pavement in the middle of Nowy Świat Street, and I feel moved by the thin young sapling birch tree that has barely sprung out of a crack in the concrete foundation of a nearby school fence. Nature co-exists with civilisation, though ostensibly dominated by the latter. This impression becomes even stronger when we become aware of the entire insect world around us, and of the sounds that their little bodies generate – above, underneath, and next to us… This realisation inspires fantastic images and concepts that bridge nature and art.

Sample, or An Insect’s Sound Profile implements one of such concepts. At the same time, it is the first Little Warsaw Autumn project to have been prepared by an international and intergenerational team of authors and performers – namely by children, artists and curators from Poland, Belarus, and Sweden.

This project is also our next consistent step towards working hand in hand with children, embracing their ideas, imagination, artistic work, creativity, and manner of perception. Genuine accessibility has been one of the key principles of Little Warsaw Autumn for several years now. This translates, first and foremost, into children’s authentic participation in the creative processes of the festival projects and events.

Anna Kierkosz