The exhibition In the Middle Lane, the Grass Was Tall in the Summer is a multifaceted story about the transformations that the Lower Silesian section of the A4 motorway has undergone over nearly a hundred years. It is a story not only of infrastructural change, but above all of political, social, and landscape transformations, in which the Polish and German histories of this important artery intertwine.

Today’s A4, built in the 1930s as Reichsautobahn 9, was part of a vast motorway network of the Third Reich, carefully framed by propaganda. After 1945, the Polish state inherited this concrete legacy of the Reich – Reichsautobahn 9 became national road E22. For years, its central median became overgrown with grass, the concrete slabs cracked, and the people of Lower Silesia began to discover and make this space their own. They went on Sunday outings, spread blankets among increasingly lush meadow vegetation, wove flower wreaths, rode bicycles, and took walks. In their memories, it remains a vivid, emotionally charged place, far removed from how we see it today.

It is precisely such memories, along with the results of several years of research conducted in institutional and private archives, that first formed the basis for a book and later for a curatorial-artistic project by Agata Ciastoń. During her inquiries, she explored the cultural and historical layers of the motorway, learning to recognize it not only as a place on a map, but also within people’s stories, in the landscape, and in press clippings and documents.

Today, she is joined on this journey by artists invited to the project, whose works meet in the exhibition with a labyrinth of archival materials—plans, maps, and photographs from Polish and German collections. Together, they create a polyphonic narrative that unfolds between human experience and the materiality of the place.

Curator: Agata Ciastoń

Artists: Ewa Axelrad, Alicja Bielawska, Emanuel Geisser i Kama Sokolnicka, Marlena Kudlicka, Natalia LL, Piotr P. Skiba, Łukasz Wojciechowski

Archival materials: State Archive in Wrocław, General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways, Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw, Institute of National Remembrance in Wrocław, Zygmunt Wojciechowski Western Institute, the Museum of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Association of Enthusiasts of the Kąty Wrocławskie Region, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the private archive of Danuta Bator.

• Graphic Design: Grupa Projektor
• Exhibition Design: Łukasz Wojciechowski
• Editing: Rozalia Radecka
• English translation: Grzegorz Piątkowski
• German translation: Sabina Bursy
• Executive production: Misia Siennicka, Agnieszka Smutek
• Exhibition installation: Olgierd Futoma, Rafał Pyster, Piotr Szyszkowski, Ireneusz Szwargulski, Krystyna Piwowarska-Kerber
• Electrical: Ryszard Zimkowski
• Publicity: Iga Bałchanowska, Marta Czyż, Kalina Soska
• Educational programme: Pola Balsiewicz, Patrycja Mazurek, Michał Chadera

The exhibition is accompanied by the book In the Middle Lane, the Grass Was Tall in the Summer, published in 2024 by Warstwy Publishing House.

The project is co-financed by the Polish-German Cooperation Foundation.