Residencies with Markus Öhrn
The residencies took place from May 5 to 31 under the curatorial supervision of Markus Öhrn. Three participants selected through an open call took part in them: Ola Bratkowska, Kuba Stępień, Patrycja Wysokińska.
Markus Öhrn
He made his debut in 2010 with the play Conte d’Amour, which won first prize at the Impulse Theater Festival in Germany (2011) and later became the first part of a trilogy (We Love Africa and Africa Loves Us, 2012, and Bis zum Tod, 2014). These works were shown, among others, at the Theatertreffen in Berlin; Wiener Festwochen in Vienna; Festival d’Avignon; Festival Transamerique in Montreal; Theater Der Welt and at the Nowy Teatr in Warsaw. In 2015, he began experimenting with site-specific projects and serial fordmats. This direction in his work includes, among others, “Azdora” (2016), Adventskalender (Volksbühne, 2015), and Wir sind die Guten (Volksbühne, 2017). In Poland, he created the performance Bohaterowie przyszłości (Heroes of the Future) at Komuna Warszawa (2014), and, at Nowy Teatr, Sonata widm (Ghost Sonata) (2017) and Trzy epizody z życia (Three Episodes of Life) (2019).
In 2021, he curated our residency program Hello Darkness My Old Friend. At that time, he produced the play Patriarchal Tears.
Patrycja Wysokińska, "We Are Here. Again"
Patrycja Wysokińska creates at the intersection of theater, performance, and new media. She has worked with Susanne Kennedy, Krzysztof Warlikowski, and Needcompany, among others. She is a finalist of the BBC Playwriting Competition, a winner of MODELATORNIA, and a participant in international artistic programs. She is interested in radical formal experiments and the deconstruction of theatrical order.
We Are Here. Again is a durational solo performance on the borderline between sci-fi, horror, and social satire, set in a technocratic post-apocalyptic world where mutated cosmic tardigrades and bearded men from Sławatycze confront the terrifying legacy of humanity. Moving on the borderline between radio art, visual arts, ritual, and choreographic practices of monstrous bodies on stage, the project explores the relationships between materiality and memory, technology and survival.
Ola Bratkowska, "Kodowanie”
Ola Bratkowska works at the intersection of art and accessibility, treating audio description not only as a tool, but as an aesthetic and political language. She is interested in creating forms of co-presence that actively expand access to culture. She is currently exploring the potential of artistic audio description in Polish theater.
The project “ Kodowanie” (Coding) is an installation exploring the performativity of language – five zones, five attempts to decode reality. Here, audio description became a creative, ambiguous medium.
Kuba Stępień, "Miner’s (Grand) Daughter”
Kuba Stępień works between Berlin, Warsaw, and her hometown of Bełchatów. Her artistic practice is based on a broadly understood process with a strong emphasis on experimental research, emotional criticism, autotheory, and a trans-nonbinary perspective.
The project “Miner’s (Grand) Daughter” is an intimate solo performance presented as a love letter, exploring the transformation of a queer person from a multi-generational mining family.
The work touched on themes of fear, exclusion, hope, monstrosity, and sexuality. It drew on mining mythology and culture, references to pop culture and fantasy, and autobiographical threads, weaving in motifs from pre-war cabaret and theater.