A 15-Metre Spruce at the Heart of Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery
A real 15-metre spruce tree now stands inside the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, the centrepiece of Żywica Splot słoneczny*, the first solo exhibition in Poland by Belarusian artist Yura Shust. The show opened in July 2026 and runs until 27 September, giving visitors several weeks to experience what is an unusually sensory proposition for a major gallery: a space designed to engage sight, hearing, and smell at once.
What the Exhibition Is About
Shust draws on years of ethnobotanical and ethnoreligious research into the forests of Belarus, Eastern Europe, and the Baltic region. His starting point is the idea, shared across many pre-Christian traditions in the area, that trees and forests occupy a sacred middle ground between the human and spiritual worlds. The spruce in particular carried ritual significance: it appeared in ancient ceremonies and was planted in cemeteries as a marker of transition.
The exhibition's physical layout reinforces this narrative. Visitors move through the circular gallery room by room, tracing a path from the crown of a spruce down to its felled trunk. Along the way, panels made from epoxy resin draw a visual parallel between tree roots and the human nervous system, specifically the solar plexus, that dense network of nerves in the abdominal cavity. The comparison is not merely decorative; it frames the body and the forest as versions of the same interconnected system, an idea supported, Shust notes, by recent scientific research into how trees communicate and sustain one another.
The exhibition's title material, natural tree resin, carries its own layered meaning. In Belarusian, the word for resin shares a root with the word for life. Over geological time, resin hardens into amber, effectively preserving whatever it encases. The title installation uses severed roots coated in resin, an image that curator Michalina Sablik, who led a tour of the show, describes as simultaneously evoking an industrial process and an ancient ritual of veneration.
Technology as the Other Thread
The exhibition does not stay in the past. Video projections and sound installations bring in a second, contemporary layer: forests as sites of technological development, from industrial extraction to the deployment of surveillance and monitoring systems. Shust is interested in how new technologies extend human perception beyond its natural limits and, in doing so, revive old dreams of transcendence, including the idea of life beyond the body. The digital echo of a group performance titled Birds With Human Heads, presented at the opening by Belarusian migrants living in Poland, continues to accompany the exhibition throughout its run.
Why It Matters for Hosts
Cultural programming at institutions like the Zachęta consistently draws visitors who combine gallery visits with multi-night stays in Warsaw. Independent accommodation operators near the city centre, particularly those hosting guests interested in contemporary art or the Belarusian diaspora community, have a concrete reason to mention this exhibition in their welcome materials or local recommendations. The show runs until late September, covering the tail end of the summer travel season and the early autumn period when leisure travel in Warsaw remains strong. A well-placed recommendation costs nothing and adds genuine value for guests planning their days.
Details about the exhibition were first reported by Reform.news, an independent Belarusian media outlet publishing in Russian and English.
First reported by Warsaw Travel.