Dariusz Fodczuk: Dialogue With a Son
PLACE: Tehdas Teatteri, Itäinen Rantakatu 64b
DATE & TIME: Sat 6.9. at 19:30-20
DURATION: 30 min. Advance registration required. Pre-registration for the performances will open in August.
LANGUAGE: English
Dariusz Fodczuk engages his 89-year-old mother in performative actions as a consequence of changes in the dynamics of family relationships following his father’s death. The performance has become a space for observing and redefining their mutual bonds, based on an intense form of presence—of simply being.
Dialogue with a Son was created in a reference to Zbigniew Warpechowski’s 1976 performance, in which the artist conducted a dialogue with his son Samuel. Fodczuk reverses this structure, giving it a new context. In Warpechowski’s performance, the father asked his eleven-year-old son fundamental questions about art. In Fodczuk’s version, the roles are reversed—the mother converses with her adult son, an artist, while deliberately avoiding answers to the very same question posed by Warpechowski: “What is art? Is art something beautiful, something wise, or is it something entirely different?”
Dariusz Fodczuk (he/him) is a visual artist and performer. He holds degrees from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin and the University of the Arts in Poznań. His work explores the status of art, with a particular focus on sculpture and performance. Through his projects, Fodczuk investigates the dynamic relationships between artist, audience, and artwork, often redefining their traditional roles and dependencies. These explorations take shape in performance cycles such as The Game, as well as participatory actions involving shared activities like sleeping and lying down.
From 2020 to 2024, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Media Arts, Photography, and Experimental Film at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. Since 2016, he has co-led the Studio of Audiovisual and Performative Actions alongside Kamil Kuskowski.
The performance Dialogue With a Son has been financed by Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
