I ate an octopus once in my life. It was delicious. Back then, I had no awareness of this creature, treating it

like a meaty vegetable, without considering that I was consuming an incredibly intelligent organism. Only after

watching the documentary "What an Octopus Taught Me" did I cry. It's a very sad feeling when

you realize you've killed someone.

However, in the context of our relationship with other organisms, what often matters more is not their intelligence, but their similarity to us. An octopus has excellent control over its body,

can change color, regenerate limbs. It has a large head, and I'm guessing its brain is hidden inside, which is

much more wrinkled than a human's, so we can envy it. The remaining eight brains are located in its

eight tentacles. In Klara Woźniak's work, each tentacle is also controlled separately, but instead of brains, they are controlled

by a written code. This makes Klara's octopus stupid. I could eat one without a twinge of conscience.

Jan Baszak comforted me when he told me about how he broke a rabbit's neck. When we learn about the hurtful behavior of others, it definitely makes us feel better. However, when Jan killed the rabbit, he was four years old, and when I ate octopus, I was 20. At a similar age to Baszak, I killed my first animal. They were chicks that I wanted to play with. Four-year-old Jan loved the rabbit his grandfather bought so much that he accidentally murdered it while playing. Their friendship was short and very destructive. However, this doesn't change the fact that he decided to commemorate his friend. When I look at Jan's sculpture, I know that he misses him. There's also a hare, watching the crime committed.

Magda Pacek presents a replica of a Slavic cult sculpture with a solar symbol. When the Slavs went to war, they placed dead animals next to such a sculpture as a sacrifice to Swarożyc. It's unclear whether this is actually true,

but similar things certainly happened. Perhaps our modern science and technology, contrary to appearances, haven't

moved us as far from ancient rituals as we'd like to think. Our contemporary approach to animals,

often relegated to laboratories and factory farms, isn't simply a modern version of ancient

practices in which animals were tools used to obtain specific benefits?

Milan Zientara's painting depicts a bird with three human heads. Zientara treats the bird as a captured

trophy – prey. However, he doesn't pity the animal; he envies it. As a human, it's much harder to evoke admiration.

When someone evokes this feeling in us, we often feel a sense of distance. A bat is more or less the same.

Our skin is one of the few places on earth where we can do whatever we want. Agata Fogtman,

to the left of the entrance, shows human skin. On her body, she placed copies of the tattoos she applied to her

clients. Skin is ugly. Tattoos have lost out to it in attractiveness. We have little influence even over our own biological bodies,

more as if we were their property, rather than theirs.

A break at work, 20 minutes of free-range time. You can, for example, eat something. Just remember that the food you consume cannot

violate company regulations. Horacy Muszyński began researching the impact of climate change on the amount

of honey produced by bees and Dutch companies. In the 1980s, Hendrik van den Berg discovered a method

for synthetically producing "liquid gold." It was one of those discoveries that changed the course of history. Muszyński

focused mainly on the Bio-Korf company, which invested enormous sums of money and the best Dutch

scientists in the creation of "salivahoney," or "salivahoney" in Polish. Thanks to the slow extinction of the bee population,

the company became successful. Apparently, the taste of salivahoney is indistinguishable from bee honey. When Horace told me all about it, I decided we had to show his work at the exhibition. Besides, it perfectly matches the color of the gallery walls.

Andrzej Staniek presents a toy for your pet called the Vegan Ugly Alien. Don't forget to provide a little entertainment

for your companion when you bring him to the exhibition. He can attack the Vegan Ugly Alien, bite off his head

and extract some delicious vegan treats.

Freedom seems to be the common denominator that would make all the creatures participating in

the exhibition happy. Unfortunately, we can only offer them free range.

text: Andrzej Staniek