The exhibition “The Garden of Spoken Words” is a space in which the word materializes in unique sculptures, paintings, and films by the Wrocław-born artist Ewa Rossano. The starting point of the project is turning toward the Other; the concepts of relationship and hospitality are also central. From the word arises an encounter, which becomes the narrative axis of the exhibition.

Ewa Rossano studied sculpture in Strasbourg and painting in Wrocław, the city with which she has been connected since birth. Her works adorn the urban fabric of the capital of Lower Silesia – they can be seen in the Square of Mutual Respect in the District of Four Denominations and in the baroque garden of the Ossolineum.

The word is above all the protagonist of the Ossolineum collections, where memory, text, and history create a shared horizon of meanings. In preparing works specifically for the exhibition at the Pan Tadeusz Museum, the artist engages in dialogue with selected objects from the collections of the Princes Lubomirski Museum and the National Ossolineum Library, allowing them to shape formal directions and give meaning to contemporary works.

The exhibition will feature several dozen works by the artist created in various techniques – sculptures, paintings, drawings, photographs, and films – as well as objects from the collections of the National Ossolinski Institute. Presented together, they will create a multidimensional structure of dialogue. The exhibition is unique for several reasons. Above all, it will present entirely new works by Ewa Rossano, prepared especially for the Wrocław audience. In addition, rarely displayed and precious museum treasures will appear in the galleries, such as Eliza Orzeszkowa’s “Zielnik” [Herbarium], drawings by Jan Piotr Norblin, the manuscript of Juliusz Słowacki’s “Raptularz” [Commonplace Book], original photographs by Jadwiga Nowak-Jeziorańska, and a fifteenth-century “Almanac. French Calendar”.

The exhibition at the Pan Tadeusz Museum (a division of the National Ossolinski Institute) will be presented in three rooms, each serving a different function: the first will become the entrance to the titular garden, the second is devoted to dialogue, and the third offers a moment of quiet and rest.

The exhibition presents Ossolineum objects in a new light, in dialogue with contemporary art, emphasizing their continuity, mutual tensions, and interplay. The exhibition space allows visitors to weave their own narrative, to be inspired by what they see and by what the presented objects open up in their imagination. The entire display resembles a multidimensional book: threads intertwine here, and the richness of sculptures in relation to historical objects – according to the artist’s intention – is meant to encourage reflection and spark unexpected associations.

“The Garden of Spoken Words” is being presented in Poland for the first time. In the following months, Ewa Rossano’s works will travel from the Pan Tadeusz Museum and be shown in other European cities, including Rome and Strasbourg, in a form adapted to new exhibition spaces.