Polish pavilion at the International Labour Exhibition in Turin, 1961

The Polish Pavilion’s exhibition at the International Labour Exhibition in Turin, an event coinciding with the centenary celebrations of Italian unification, comprised a series of enlarged photographs, illustrations, information panels, and an animated film, with no physical objects present. The exhibition was devised by a collective of internationally renowned graphic designers associated with the Polish Poster School—Wojciech Zamecznik, Wojciech Fangor, Jan Lenica, Józef Mroszczak, Julian Pałka, and Henryk Tomaszewski—in collaboration with the architect Kazimierz Husarski.
At the entrance to the Polish pavilion, an animated film by Wojciech Zamecznik (1923–67) and Jan Lenica (1928–2001) was shown in a four-minute loop (this film was later awarded a Silver Dragon at the 1962 Krakow Film Festival). As the Polish presentation was related to social security issues, the film focused on six image complexes: unemployment, war, emigration, disability/sickness, old age, and motherhood. The film’s power comes from the movement and metamorphosis of visual symbols. For example, emigration is embodied as a human face transforming into a flying white bird, and then a black bird.