Context:

The trouble with most small towns is that few people know where they are. Even Poles struggle to find Szubin on the map. And, as is often the case, such places end up with the defining attribute of being nearby something else – Szubin, for instance, is near Bydgoszcz.

There’s no train connection to Szubin, and it isn’t a town known for its beauty. But places like these sometimes hold unexpected treasures, and Szubin has its own: the people who were born or grew up there. Artists like Grzegorz Pleszynski, or Artur Mackowiak, the curator of the Fonomo Festival, among many others who made a mark in the arts. Szubin was once a center for artistic exchange, a space where experimental art and music found a home – often within the walls of the local Dom Kultury (House of Culture).

To reconnect Szubin with its artistic heritage and revive its creative spirit, Artur Mackowiak organised a Prologue event – an evening of performances, concerts, and film screenings as a prelude to the Fonomo Festival. It was in this context that I was invited to present this performance, contributing to a rekindling of artistic energy in a place that, despite its quiet obscurity, has long been a home for the avant-garde.

Description of actions:
A collage of performance images and sounds is created by executing the following actions with selected material.

• Sitting on a chair, I begin to colour my white clothes in shades of blue, the pigment spreading with every stroke of my hands. At first the movements are slow and deliberate, then they become faster and faster and more powerful.
• I take hold of both ends of the tablecloth, pause for a breath and then flick it out in one swift movement. Yellow petals fly into the air, hovering briefly before gliding gently to the ground.
• I take six long-stemmed roses and carefully tuck them into a doll’s dress and place the rose doll’s dress on the floor.
• I climb onto the table and lift a branch, the weight of which is balanced by a chair hanging from a coiled rope. The chair floats in the air and begins to turn as if reacting to an invisible force.
• I dance with the rose-filled dress, moving it as if it had a presence of its own, and then place it on the table.
• Porcelain plates spin on the floor, their movement creating an evolving soundscape. The rhythm echoes in the room before I collect them and place them back on the table.
• I lift a bell from a bowl filled with water and dip it in and out. Each time it touches the surface, its sound changes.
• A music stand balances on its legs and turns. Wooden letters fall to the floor.
• I hold a book in front of my face, its pages shifting as I turn my head, as my hands flick through them. Then I start to tear them out one by one. The torn pages fall down and float around me.
• I tie the doll’s dress around my neck and it turns into a temporary bib. I sit at the laid table, the ceremony of the meal is implied and yet incomplete.
• I lift the table. The plates on the surface come closer and closer to the edge until one after the other slips off and breaks into shards on the floor.
• The doll’s dress is placed on the music stand.
• Three orange-coloured, drop-shaped forms take shape on my shirt, are painted into life.
• I take a bow and shoot five roses towards the dress lying on the music stand.
• The final gesture: I shoot the last rose in the direction of the audience.