The castle's halls will bring together European paintings, historic botanical atlases, Japanese images of flowers and birds, and contemporary works engaging with the climate crisis. Illustrations by Maria Sibylla Merian and Elisabeth Blackwell will appear alongside works by Stanisław Wyspiański, Leon Wyczółkowski, and Watanabe Seitei, as well as sculptures, installations, and pieces created exclusively for this showcase. Nature is no longer relegated to the role of a mere pretty backdrop for human stories. Instead, it emerges as the exhibition's protagonist, a witness to the transformations of the world and an active agent in its shaping.

The titular herbarium therefore serves not only as a metaphor, but also as a warning. What if, one day, certain species survive only on faded paper, or as specimens locked behind museum glass or captured on canvas? In the Anthropocene, the wonder we experience at the sight of a flower, a leaf, or a butterfly's wing inevitably carries an acute awareness of how fragile such beauty has become. The exhibition invites us to look beyond the familiar idea of nature as a resource or a decoration, urging us to recognise it instead as a multispecies community to which we too belong, however persistently we may forget it.

Marta Smolińska

translator: Krzysztof Kotkowski

Exhibition: "The World as a Herbarium. Nature in Art from the 17th to the 21st Century"
Zamek (Castle) Cultural Centre, open until 6 December
for more, see: Zamek Cultural Centre website

© Wydawnictwo Miejskie Posnania 2026