Exhibition concept · 2nd prize in the competition · 2026
Poland through the lens and letters of John Vachon — exhibition concept for the Museum of Polish History
The exhibition proposal tries to capture the unusual perspective of John Vachon, who, like today’s visitor, looked at post-war Poland through the eyes of a stranger.
The design translates that gaze into the language of a contemporary exhibition, focusing on the experience of looking, the search for meaning and the material side of reconstruction.
The concept won second prize in the Museum of Polish History competition and drew a lot of interest — above all for its modern approach to exhibition design, where multimedia meets analogue interaction. For a year we had the pleasure of studying John Vachon’s work.
Visitor route
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The entrance zone, composed classically and echoing neoclassical sculpture, sets a mood of gravity and mystery. From here visitors can enter the darkened cinema module and the “Warsaw Accuses” module, key to the historical context of the exhibition.
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A slanting, dark corridor leads to “the Darkroom”, a space inspired by the analogue photographic process, understood as learning to see. A multisensory table introduces Vachon, his craft and his way of working, and prepares visitors to look closely at the next parts of the exhibition. You leave “the Darkroom” through a symbolic lens: an objective modelled on the Rolleiflex Vachon photographed with.
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Set apart is the library, a place for individual or shared work and contemplation. Movable plexiglass screens let visitors reshape its modular space freely.
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At the heart of “The Eyes of Poland” is an immersive multimedia installation that recreates a train journey through a changing landscape. It invites the wonder at the variety of nature that Vachon felt, and gives the exhibition the momentum needed to understand the migrations of the 1940s. The layout builds a sense of community between today’s visitors and the people in the photographs. Here visitors can also stop by Andrzej Wróblewski’s “Double Painting”, a work that prompts reflection on the many sides of human fate, caught between the political and the private.
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In “Liquid War” the scaffolding, already present in the earlier rooms, fully takes the stage. It combines a structural role with the imagery and symbolism of reconstruction. The dense, open structure forms a maze in which visitors, discovering one object and thread after another, may themselves feel like strangers.
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The last room is a contemporary comment on the fears of a fast-changing geopolitical situation, a more brutal world and the war in Ukraine. At its centre is the painting “There Hasn’t Been a War for a Long Time”, shown sparingly on a large, empty wall.
Visual identity
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Visualisations
Visualisations: rewir.studio, Unreal Engine