Exhibition
3.11.2024

IN II TENT performance

In the final days of the Rotating Gallery, we invite you to an activity by artist Dominiak Laster IN II TENT—a performative installation addressing the theme of radical hospitality. During the joint exhibition, which runs from September 28 to November 4, a tent is present—a trace of the performance that opened the activities at the gallery. On Sunday, November 3, the artist will again await guests and visitors to the Museum there.

The artist will be expecting you:

  • 3 November, at 11AM-1PM, 1:30PM-3PM and 4PM-6PM

In 2024, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews will celebrate its 10th birthday. We would like to take this opportunity to amplify the voice of Jewish artists by creating a rotating, living, polyphonic space of expression for contemporary artists in one of the galleries of the core exhibition. 

Hospitality is a salient feature of most—if not all—traditional societies. What happens to the practices of hospitality when an individual or a community is on the move—with no stable or permanent home? IN II TENT engages with this question by exploring ancient practices of hospitality in the present. 

IN II TENT is a one-to-one performance built around the action of a ritual ablution of the feet. One of the core (in)tents of the performance is to create a space of unconditional reception in which the artist performs restorative acts of care. The space of the tent is one of (u)Topia—or no-place. The emphasis on the act of care in transient and ephemeral spaces is a decolonial gesture that points to the myriad of ways in which we can tread lightly (on land) and reminds us of our true relation to earth: we are mere passersby. 

The radical inclusiveness of the tent—conceived as a space apart—carries the potential to temporarily suspend the identity categories that would render us as "the other" in each other’s eyes. Alternatively, it may be a space in which we dwell intentionally in the discomfort or unease that radical difference may present.

The performance constitutes an embodied exploration of issues and questions related to itineracy, precarity, (un)settling, and (de)coloniality. It further offers a critical and generative engagement with modern notions of statehood, statelessness, nomadism, and the ever-elusive idea and sensation of home. 

Dominika Laster is a transdisciplinary artist, performer, theatre director, writer, and researcher with a vigorous creative and curatorial practice advancing interdisciplinary research-driven creative work that is deeply committed to issues related to precarity, inclusivity, practices of care, decoloniality, and critical utopias.


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Partners:

FestvALT    Fundacja Zapomniane

Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage – project: "Rotating Gallery as part of POLIN Museum’s 10th birthday celebration (developing a network of Jewish artists)."

Logo of Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.