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This exhibition confronts the issues we faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Outside the building, visitors encounter discarded descriptions—personal reflections from the artist’s visit to a sealed infectious disease hospital in Toruń, where he spent hours with his father dying of COVID, shortly before his death. These texts bear witness to the conditions of treatment, the persistent solitude and isolation that patients endured. They reflect on the rupture of social, familial, and friendly bonds—an ever-growing reality in the pandemic.
Another text focuses on hospital medical staff. The relentless workload and burnout led to total emotional numbness toward death—a departure from the idealized media narrative of “frontline heroes.” We must reflect on how these healthcare workers, forged in crisis, will carry their trauma into the future.
—a symbol of an economy in collapse; its high windows echo the memory of lockdown closures—stands a makeshift morgue filled with body-bags. Above hang tattered posters taken from government propaganda on TV and city walls: “Thank you, healthcare heroes,” images of the Prime Minister offering vaccines to a child. These posters bluntly expose the superficiality of official actions, designed to soothe public opinion amid chaos and lack of real strategy.
This dystopian vision of post-pandemic devastation invites reflection on how to rebuild and envision the world after trauma. It continues the artist’s Phantom State project—first launched online—and the Bioreactors exhibition (first wave), followed by Parasites (second wave).
For this exhibition, the artist invited Marek “Looney” Rybowski, an artist known for his hyperrealist murals. His style recalls the propaganda realism of socialist-era media, now resurfacing in public broadcasts.
I saw my father in the hospital. His name was Tadeusz. We called him “The Leader.” He lay curled in a bed on a crumpled pillow. He breathed weakly, with an oxygen mustache. The doctors said he wouldn’t cooperate, eat, or drink—he probably couldn’t. He recognized me and said, “Son, is that you?” I removed my mask.
I think about his loneliness.
The day before, another patient died. Staff only entered the ward two or three times a day. My father lay beside a dead body for hours. He didn’t know if he was next—there were no monitors for each patient. Pulse oximeters were only connected three times daily—if you weren’t fast, you could die between measurements.
They didn’t reposition him as promised; there were only two nurses per shift—too few. So he lay in contracture and suffocated.
They took away his glasses (he was -7). He couldn’t see. He was alone. Staff in suits came every eight hours, spoke from behind masks—he couldn’t understand. They didn’t know he needed a hearing aid. He saw, didn’t hear, didn’t understand—but doctors claimed they communicated with him. They didn’t.
He couldn’t find his phone; it was placed just out of reach after rounds and then forgotten. 24 hours without contact.
This hospital had no ICU. A doctor asked me, “Resuscitate? You decide…” I thought: who is treating whom? Me? They? We call, we fight, but they have a different plan…
Toruń Regional Hospital, Pulmonology Ward, Infectious Disease Unit, Z. Krasiński 4/4a
On-duty doctor:
“If my father hasn’t eaten or drunk since yesterday, shouldn’t we give more fluids? How much did he get?”
“I don’t know but I’ll check.”
“Did he get Remdesivir?”
“Not sure—sometimes we give it.”
“Why not to him?”
“The head doctor decides.”
“Are there criteria?”
“I already told you—the head doctor decides.”
“Will he at least get fluids?”
“Yes, I’ll come later.”
Head Doctor:
“He worsened. We wanted to move him to the ICU but he had respiratory arrest—there was nothing we could do.”
The day after the father’s death:
“Doctor, you wrote he had 92% saturation and was intubated—but the tube was misplaced into the esophagus, causing asphyxiation.”
“Oh, I didn’t read that…”
“You signed it. It blames the hospital for his death.”
“Unfortunate wording… I’m sorry.”
“What now?”
“Unfortunate…”
That day, the on-duty doctor was decorating the staff room with balloons and garlands—a plush doctor doll stood in a COVID gown. Two gold ‘50’ balloons declared a birthday celebration.
On TV:
“I’m a paramedic. I sit in this ambulance for hours, in this suit, can’t eat. We wait here with a patient for hours… I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”
TV tonight:
“Bed occupancy is ~62%, ventilators 43%. We have full coverage for patients. The issue is late reporting. We help everyone and still have capacity.”
In reality (about my father):
“Tomorrow I’ll send you an online test referral. Results in two days. We’ll mail you a pulse-oximeter.”
It arrived 4 days later without instructions. My father couldn’t even leave to get batteries—quarantine. My sister went. She changed them—and fell ill 6 days later.
TV:
“1500 new cases daily in the region. About 30 deaths. The wave is rising—it’s not the peak yet. The government ordered 4 million masks—3.5 per person. Maybe this will help.”
Reality (my godmother):
Paramedic: “If you suffocate more, we’ll come, but for now no indication to hospitalize.”
“My husband is also sick—maybe you’ll see him?”
“One request per call. Not a wish concert.”
Later, her daughter took her—80% of lungs involved. Discharge papers said: “Buy a home oxygen concentrator—cannot stay indefinitely.”
Reality (my father again):
“Saturation is 85%—come now.”
“We need multiple readings… We can’t come to everyone—too busy.”
“I don’t care—my sister-in-law’s an anesthesiologist, she said I must call an ambulance.”
“Why make a fuss? Alright… we’ll go…”
Me (a memory returns):
La Caños de Mecca. We lie on the beach—my wife, bare-breasted in the sun, white wine, Atlantic surf, 36 °C shade. I read Didi-Huberman’s Images Despite Everything aloud: war; extermination; indifference. Why does it come back?
TV tonight:
“Tonight, spontaneous balcony applause for medics in Polish cities—over a minute. City Hall of Gdańsk commissioned a mural ‘Thank you, healthcare workers.’ A dog in a surgical mask. Two people in gowns play music from a balcony; others dance.”
I wonder: what kind of doctor will emerge from such trauma? After all, that doctor might treat me one day. Will he cope? Or will he return from balcony applause, strike his wife in contempt for beauty, then weep in the bathroom? Just another PTSD episode. I wish him well—he is my hope.
MACIEJ ŚMIETAŃSKI – THE FOURTH WAVE
Exhibition Opening: Stocznia Cesarska Hall 49, 04.06.2021, 18:00
Banners: Marek Looney Rybowski
Funeral portrait: Prof. Jacek Kornacki
Translation: Kosma Śmietański
Graphic design: Tomasz Halski
Photos: Dominik Kulaszewicz
Print materials: ARPI
Opening photos: Łukasz Głowala
Special thanks to: Ania Śmietańska, Stefan Śmietański, Agnieszka Braun, Mariusz Waras
